Frederick Gaudreau had two goals and an assist as the Minnesota Wild continued to pick up points at will, emerging with a 5-3 victory over the Edmonton Oilers on Thursday.
Matt Boldy, Marcus Foligno and Marcus Johansson also scored for the Wild (13-3-3), who have gone 5-1-1 in their last seven games.
Leon Draisaitl, Corey Perry and Jeff Skinner replied for the Oilers (10-9-2), who have lost three of their last four as the injury bug has taken a toll of late.
Marc-Andre Fleury made 29 saves between the pipes for the Wild, while Stuart Skinner made 21 stops in net for the Oilers.
Wild: Kirill Kaprizov’s first-period assist extended his points streak to seven games (six goals and seven assists). The Russian forward is currently on pace to reach 150 points this season after becoming the Wild’s first player in to reach triple-digits in points with 108 in 2021-2022. Kaprizov came into the contest having recorded a point on an impressive 33 of Minnesota’s 61 goals, a league-high 54.1 per cent participation rate.
Oilers: With injuries to Viktor Arvidsson and Zach Hyman, forward Kasperi Kapanen made his debut on Edmonton’s second line, just a couple of days after being claimed off waivers from the St. Louis Blues on Tuesday. The Finnish forward and former 2014 first-round pick had a goal in 10 games for the Blues and has notched 209 points in 470 career NHL games with Toronto, Pittsburgh and St. Louis.
It was an odd start and certainly not the way that Marc-Andre Fleury wanted to see his 1,000th career start in net begin as Draisaitl got the easiest goal of his career. A long slowly rolling puck came from well outside the zone on the net and Fleury, who also moved into third in all-time goalie games played in the contest, went to swat it up the ice, only to have it take a hop and bounce through his legs to give Edmonton a 1-0 lead on their first shot just 27 seconds into the game. Draisaitl was credited with his 15th goal of the season and the third goal of his career scored in the first 30 seconds of a game.
The Wild have given the Oilers fits for a long time. The Wild’s 63 wins, 136 points and 30 road wins all time against Edmonton are most against any team. Since the start of the 2010-11 season, Minnesota is 19-5-0 in its last 24 games in Edmonton.
Wild: Finish off a three-game road trip in Calgary against the Flames on Saturday.
Oilers: Wrap up a brief two-game homestand versus the New York Rangers on Saturday.
