The Edmonton Oilers are back in the loss column.
On Thursday evening, the Oilers returned home to host the Minnesota Wild and fell by a score of 5-3 to bring their season record to 10-9-2.
Edmonton opened the scoring less than a minute in, scoring one of the flukiest goals of the season, as Leon Draisaitl’s pass ended up in the back of the Wild net despite being in the Oilers’ zone. I don’t really know how to explain what happened, so it’s better to just watch.
Halfway through the first period, Matthew Boldy tied the game as his slot from the slot beat Stuart Skinner through a heavy screen.
The Wild took the lead just over three minutes into the second period, as Marcus Foligno pounced on a rebound his own rebound. But just over three minutes later, the Oilers’ Corey Perry tied with an old school wrap around.
It was all the Wild from there though. Just over three minutes later, they retook the lead as Marcus Johansson caught Skinner sliding to his left. Frederick Gaudreau scored with just under three minutes left in the second period.
A few minutes into the third period, Gaudreau iced the puck on a 2 on 1, as Skinner made the initial save, but the rebound bounced to Gaudreau who made no mistake burying the puck into the gaping net.
Jeff Skinner scored his fourth of the season with 25 seconds left in the game, but it was too little too late. The Wild closed out the rest of the time in the third period and won by a score of 5-3.
Takeaways…
The Oilers looked like a team playing their sixth game on the tenth night. Aside from maybe the game against the Montréal Canadiens, that was their worst performance of the season.
For the sixth consecutive game, the Oilers didn’t allow a goal on the penalty kill. They killed off one penalty in this game and now have killed off 13 straight. At least that’s coming around. On the other side, though, the power play didn’t score in two opportunities against Minnesota. The newly-acquired Kasperi Kapanen drew both of the Wild’s penalties, which is a nice impression to make for a player who was claimed off of waivers.
The Oilers dropped the gloves and wound up with a loss, ending a streak of six wins in games with a fight. It was sprung on by Drake Caggiula making a hit big on Kirill Kaprizov, leading to Matthew Boldy dropping the mitts with the veteran call-up from the AHL.
Edmonton returns to action on Saturday, hosting the New York Rangers. Afterward, they won’t play until next Friday, a rest that they evidently need given how the team has been playing lately.
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