GAME RECAP: Wild 5, Oilers 3

ST. PAUL, MN - It was another one of those typical performances you'd expect from the Minnesota Wild on home ice.
The Edmonton Oilers struggled to crack the defensive shell of the Wild in the second of back-to-back games on Thursday night, mustering 21 shots on netminder Marc-Andre Fleury in a 5-3 defeat at Xcel Energy Center.
"They play a tight game," defenceman Cody Ceci said. "I thought they were checking pretty tough all night and then when they have the puck in the zone, they're just good at using the whole zone and all five guys. So they played a good game. They moved it well and they capitalized on some chances."
Leon Draisaitl scored on the power play to open the scoring and set up Connor McDavid's 19th goal of the season in the second period, but the Oilers saw their three-game win streak end thanks to a goal and two assists from Kirill Kaprizov and two-point performances from Sherwood Park product Sam Steel, Joel Eriksson Ek and defenceman Jon Merrill.
"Yeah, they're a good team," McDavid said. "They've been a good team for a number of years and they were desperate tonight. More desperate than were. I thought they played well."
The Oilers return home to open up a four-game homestand at Rogers Place against the Montreal Canadiens on Saturday night.

YOUR GAME-DAY ESSENTIALS

GAME DAY
Photo Gallery
Full Highlights
Look Back at the In-Game Blog
POST-GAME VIDEO
OILERS TODAY | Post-Game at MIN
POST-RAW | Coach Woodcroft
POST-RAW | Connor McDavid
POST-RAW | Cody Ceci
POST-GAME UPDATES
Inside The Oilers Blog

FIRST BLOOD

You'd have to wager that of Leon Draisaitl's now 102 power-play goals over his career, close to 75 percent of those have been from his office in the left circle.
The German added another one to his long list of drop-knee one-timers when he opened the scoring on Thursday night from The Spot™️ at 8:43 of the first period after Evan Bouchard and Connor McDavid combined to set up Draisaitl with the assists.
Draisaitl's split for goals scored on the powerplay both home and away from Rogers Place has been almost right down the middle, with his first-period goal marking the 50th PPG on the road in his career.
CALL OF THE WILD
The second period was the wild unknown for the Oilers despite McDavid and Draisaitl connecting on another 2-on-1 inside the first five minutes of the frame.
Before the Dynamic Duo did that, the game was level when Ceci's tripping penalty on Kaprizov led to the other number 97 in the NHL not named McDavid setting up the equalizing goal from Eriksson Ek, who's shot rolled over the line after getting through the sliding Jack Campbell on the powerplay 1:15 into the period.
With the Oilers up 2-1 and shorthanded again midway through the frame, Kaprizov converted quickly off a Minnesota faceoff win when the puck to Matt Boldy, who then slid a pass to the Russian to tie the game once again with a nice dangle and backhand in front past Campbell.
Just 3:06 later, Frederick Gaudreau lifted the Wild into their first lead with a slick backhand short side over Campbell, leading Minnesota into the intermission with a 3-2 lead through 40 minutes.
"Obviously we want to win every game and I thought we got off to a good enough start to kind of hang on," McDavid said. "And I think when you're winning two-to-one halfway through the game, you'd like to see get some points out of it. But like I said, give them credit. We made mistakes, they made us pay."

SAVE OF THE GAME

Netminder Marc-Andre Fleury made the biggest of his 18 saves on the evening during Edmonton's last critical power play when Nic Petan was sent to the box for hooking Mattias Janmark.
The puck came across to Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, who would've had Edmonton back to within a goal if it weren't for the outstretched blocker of Fleury, who jolted across the crease to deny the Oilers a much-needed avenue back into the game with eight minutes left in regulation.
It would prove vital, as the Wild would score twice after that -- once through Sam Steel and again via a Mats Zuccarello deflection -- to condemn Edmonton to defeat.

"Back-to-backs are tough," Ceci said. "We're in it most of the way and I don't know if it's fatigue or what. A sloppy line change in the third period, it cost us that fourth one. That kind of caused a little too much separation for us to come back."
"We got a big win yesterday, but coming in here, we knew it was going to be tough game. We wanted to play smart and we just got a little bit sloppy in the third and it got away from us."

PARTING WORDS

Ceci on returning home to begin a four-game homestand:
"That'll be nice. I think this last month was tough for us. We had a lot of road games, so it'll be nice to get back home in front of our fans and hopefully string some wins together."
Ceci on the Oilers 13-11-0 record and need to string some wins in a row together:
"Yeah, I don't think anyone is too satisfied with the overall results of how we've been playing, but we are still above .500. We're still right in the race with all the other teams, so it's a good spot to be. Hopefully we can keep grinding them out and get a couple of bodies back."

Woodcroft on a tough stretch of seven games in 13 days:
"Well, I thought were putting something together there with the three-game winning streak. I thought we actually did some good things in New Jersey and Long Island. We didn't get the result. I thought we did some good things tonight, and what I like is seeing our players compete and give it everything they have, and tonight our guys gave it everything they have but we just made a few too many small errors that ended up in the back of our net and it was too big of a hill to overcome.
"So on the whole, if you look at it like a six game road trip like you called it, it's three-and-three and we're happy to go back home and get some rest and get ready to take on Montreal because I'm sure it's going to be a good game."