Road dominance continues as Wild rally to win in Edmonton

The Minnesota Wild survived an early deficit and a scary moment when star Kirill Kaprizov had to leave the game, rallying to win in Edmonton on Thursday.

By Jess Myers, Pioneer Press – November 22, 2024

EDMONTON, Alberta – They allowed an ugly goal early and their star player was hurt for a time, their power play continued to struggle and the home team’s biggest star made a few “get up out of your seat” rushes to the net. And despite all of that outrageous misfortune, the Minnesota Wild just keep finding ways to win on the road.

On a cold and snowy Thursday night in northern Alberta, they overcame an early deficit to beat the Edmonton Oilers 5-3, improving to an eye-popping 9-1-2 in road games.

Freddie Gaudreau scored a pair of goals for Minnesota — which has a crazy, high-scoring loss in Philadelphia last month as the only blemish on its road record after a dozen games away from St. Paul. Gaudreau feels that their system of play is conducive to road winning.

“Yeah, it’s a system that everybody believes in and works at it and trusts,” he said. “I think our focus is just to get better and better within that system. We’re a team I think that is solid defensively and we get our bounces from solid defense and we keep working that way.”

Making the 1,000th start of his career, Wild goalie Marc-Andre Fleury had 29 saves on a night when the opponents were focused on stopping Minnesota star forward Kirill Kaprizov. Kaprizov managed one assist and had to leave the game for a shift in the second period following a knee-on-knee hit by Oilers fourth-liner Drake Caggiula.

“I thought it was a knee on knee hit, but thankful he came back and he looked good,” Wild coach John Hynes said. “But obviously, you don’t want to see those type of hits in the game.”

The Wild led 3-2 at the time and got a double dose of good news as Kaprizov returned to the visitors’ bench at the same moment that Gaudreau popped a shot past Edmonton goalie Stuart Skinner to give Minnesota some separation. He added another in the third for his second multi-goal game of the season.

Disaster struck for Fleury just 27 seconds into the game, when first Jake Middleton and then the goalie both fanned on a dump-in by Oilers forward Leon Draisaitl, and the puck slid between Fleury’s legs for an easy 1-0 lead for the home team.

“It was coming, rolling to me and right in front of my stick it just bounced over. It was dumb though, I should have just make sure I stopped it first and make sure I moved it,” Fleury said. “I let out a couple of ‘fringe’ and ‘fudge’ and then start over, there is nothing you can do anymore and then stopped the next one.”

The Wild pushed back less than two minutes later and appeared to have tied the game, but Edmonton successfully challenged the play, and replays determined that the Wild had entered the offensive zone offside. But they refused to fold despite the bad fortune.

“When the goal went in on Flower, it was just bounces happen and that was the message on the bench. We just gotta keep going. You just kind of laugh about it,” Marcus Foligno said. “It was a terrible puck and then you get the offside call come back…so you feel like ok what else is going to happen in this game. We just keep working. That’s kind of been the mentality of the season. You put your head down, you gotta work and see what happens. It’s nice to get rewarded. I thought our line was a lot better.”

They knotted the game for real near the midway point of the first, when Matt Boldy zipped a shot from 30 feet out with Joel Eriksson Ek providing a nice screen in front of the Oilers’ goalie. Kaprizov had the primary assist on the tying goal, giving him a franchise-record 11 consecutive road games with a point.

One shift after Foligno cleaned up his own rebound to give Minnesota its first lead early in the second, Fleury redeemed himself for the opening-shift flub with a sliding poke-check save to thwart Oilers star Connor McDavid’s solo rush to the net. But Corey Perry’s wraparound try glanced off Jared Spurgeon’s skate and over the line for a 2-2 deadlock.

Goals by Marcus Johansson and Gaudreau gave Minnesota a bit of cushion, which it needed in the final 20 minutes as Edmonton made a furious push early. With Skinner on the bench, the Oilers scored with 24.6 seconds on the clock in a classic push that came too late.

Skinner had 21 saves for Edmonton.

The Wild conclude their current three-game road trip on Saturday afternoon in Calgary.