To beat a power like Edmonton on the road, you need to take an early lead, get contributions from your stars, and stay out of the penalty box. The Minnesota Wild only did two out of the three on Tuesday.
The Wild’s late rally was enough to earn a point, but Evan Bouchard scored the Oilers’ third power-play goal of the game in overtime as the Oilers beat Minnesota, 4-3, at Rexall Place.
It was the first game on a season-long, five-game road trip for the Wild.
Joel Eriksson Ek, Kirill Kaprizov and Ryan Hartman scored for the Wild (6-2-2) who trailed by two goals halfway through the third but rallied to force overtime. But a penaly for having too many men on the ice in overtime gave the Oilers the man advantage that produced the game-winner.
Jesper Wallstedt had 28 saves for Minnesota, while Leon Draisaitl scored a pair of power-play goals for Edmonton.
Eriksson Ek’s second goal of the season came after the Oilers defense lost track of him on a faceoff play, leaving the Wild center alone in front of the Edmonton crease. Devon Levi stopped his first shot, but Eriksson Ek put the rebound away for an early lead.
It was all going well, with Wallstedt standing tall in the net, until the final minute of the first. Back-to-back penalties on the Wild gave Edmonton a two-man advantage late in the period, and Draisaitl scored on the power play with 2.9 seconds on the clock to tie the game.
Back on the power play to start the second, Draisaitl struck again after a minute in the period to give the home team its first lead. And the Oilers got an even strength goal just three seconds after Hartman left the penalty box later in the middle frame.
The Wild pushed back with 44 seconds of 5-on-3 power play of their own and were an inch or so away from cutting into the Edmonton lead, but a pretty backhander by Kaprizov late in the second clanked the post after beating Levi on the glove side, sending the Oilers to the second intermission with a 3-1 lead.
Wild coach John Hynes began double shifting Kaprizov as the third period wore on, and the move paid off when the star forward scored-his NHL-best 11th goal of the season, making it a one-goal game. They forged a tie two shifts later when Hartman finally got his first of the season after a feed from Bobby Brink.
Levi finished with 27 saves for the Oilers, who visit St. Paul on Dec. 8.
In the midst of their longest road trip of the season, the Wild visit Calgary for a 8 p.m. first faceoff on Thursday.
Briefly
Wild forward Nico Sturm was back in the lineup for the first time after missing the previous three games with a concussion. Injured by an inadvertent puck to the head in a win versus Vegas last week, Sturm said before the game he is going to wear ear guards on his helmet for the time being to see how he likes them. His injury came a few weeks after Wild defenseman Brock Faber suffered a fractured skull from a puck that struck above his left ear.