For the past few years, a trip to Minnesota has been pretty much a guaranteed loss for the Oilers.
The Wild came into Thursday’s game at the Xcel Energy Center having won six games in a row at home against Edmonton dating back to the 2018-19 season. The last time Edmonton beat Minnesota on the road was in February of 2019 and the Wild outscored the Oilers 32-to-20 over those six games.
Couple that history with the start to the season that the Wild have been putting together — a 19-6-4 record with some of the strongest defensive results in the league — and this looked like this game was going to be an uphill battle for Edmonton. Instead, the Oilers breezed through Minnesota with a 7-1 win, arguably their most dominant of the season.
“Obviously, it hasn’t been the friendliest place to play for us,” Zach Hyman said after the game. “But we’ve been playing some really good hockey of late, so it was good to carry that into tonight and play probably one of our most complete games over 60 minutes.”
Hyman opened the scoring with a power-play goal seven minutes into the first period. Kasperi Kapanen and Frederick Gaudreau exchanged goals later in the frame to make the score 2-1 heading into the first intermission and then Edmonton completely took over. The Oilers scored five unanswered goals in the second and third periods to earn their largest margin of victory this season.
Following the team’s tight 2-1 win over the Tampa Bay Lightning earlier this week, the seven-goal onslaught was a welcomed sight for the Oilers. Head coach Kris Knoblauch said after the gamer that the team was motivated to face an opponent at the top of the standings.
“We were very motivated to play a good hockey team — first place in the NHL and playing really well and not giving very much up,” Knoblauch said. “We’ve been playing some good hockey lately. I think right through our lineup, everyone gave us a really good game.”
The star of the game for the Oilers was Leon Draisaitl, who scored one goal and three assists in the win. He leads the league with 21 goals and is just five points back of Nathan MacKinnon for the league lead in scoring with 42 points. Knoblauch noted that everyone had a strong game for Edmonton on Thursday but Draisaitl’s line with Vasily Podkolzin and Kasperi Kapanen stood out.
“Leon was really good,” Knoblauch added. “I thought of all our players really stood out tonight. I can’t say that anybody had an off game. Everyone was really good, but Leon really was at another level. His two linemates really helped out, Podkolzin and Kapanen, and those three have been playing well. But Leon in the last week or so has really been on top of his game.”
It was this time last year that the Oilers went on their first extended streak of the season, first winning eight games in a row and then challenging the NHL record with 16 consecutive wins. They were able to erase a poor start to the season with those winning streaks and Edmonton looks poised to do something similar with the way they’ve been playing as of late.
“I think everybody in our locker room is pretty confident that it was going to turn. It’s a long season,” Hyman said. “We didn’t get off to the greatest start on both ends, but we have a history of being pretty good on the special teams. So it’s good to get it sorted and find some consistency and hopefully, carry it forward.”
The Oilers are now on a season-high four-game winning streak and own a 17-10-2 record, good for third place in the Pacific Division. They’re one point back of the Los Angeles Kings and five points back of the Vegas Golden Knights in the standings with the same amount of games played as both teams. Edmonton will host Vegas on Saturday for a massive four-point match.
