You can’t lose ‘em all.
It seemed for a while there, five years to be exact, like the Edmonton Oilers actually could spend the rest of their lives going zero-for-Minnesota.
But all bad things come to an end and that end was a lopsided and long overdue 7-1 shellacking over the Wild Thursday at the previously barren wasteland known as Xcel Energy Center.
The Oilers scored twice on the power play, once shorthanded and three times at even strength to snap a six-game road losing streak dating back to 2019 (by a combined score of 28-14) and beat their nemesis for just the third time in the last 14 tries.
“Obviously this hasn’t been the friendliest place for us,” said winger Zach Hyman, who scored his fourth goal in the last four games. “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 against a team that had the best record in the league.”
The Wild have owned the Oilers for a very long time, going 35-11-1 (.755) vs. Edmonton since 2010-11. But this was Edmonton’s night. They overwhelmed the hosts and extended their winning streak to a season-high four games, improving to 17-10-2 in the process.
Leon Draisaitl was the star of the show, putting up a goal and three assists in the first 40 minutes. Singles went to Zach Hyman, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Connor Brown, Kasperi Kapanen, Troy Stecher and Derek Ryan.
Thirteen of Edmonton’s 18 skaters picked up at least one point while Evan Bouchard, Vasily Podkolzin, Darnell Nurse and Connor McDavid has two assists each.
The Oilers did catch some major breaks heading into this one. A handful of key Minnesota players were out with injuries, including centre Joel Eriksson Ek and defenceman Jonas Brodin.
Brodin is second on the Wild defence in minutes played and Eriksson Ek is third among forwards. Both have been key ingredients in Minnesota’s ability to keep McDavid and the Oilers in check.
The Wild were also down forward Mats Zuccarello, who is third on the team in points per game. And then, to make matters worse, they were down to five defenceman after Jake Middleton, who’s in their top pairing, left the game with an injury 37 seconds into the first period.
But asterisks aside, the Oilers owned a team that came into the game tied for first overall at 19-5-4. They scored seven, held them to one, controlled the special teams game and won the goaltending battle with their backup between the pipes.
“Obviously they’re missing some key pieces, we’re aware of that,” said Hyman. “But it’s still an unbelievable team. We’ve had history of not playing well in this building so it was nice to find our game and play it for a full 60.”
The Oilers are now 2-0 through the first four games of their Murderers’ Row schedule, having held Tampa Bay and Minnesota to one goal each in the process. Vegas (Saturday afternoon) and Florida (Monday) are yet to come.
LATE HITS — Bouchard left the game, limping rather badly and in considerable pain, with 3:34 left in the third period after taking a hit from Ryan Hartman.
“We’ll fly home and get it checked out,” said head coach Kris Knoblauch. “Hopefully it’s something minor.”
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