Cam Talbot made 38 saves as the Minnesota Wild downed the Edmonton Oilers 4-1 Tuesday night at Rogers Place.
The Oilers have lost three games in a row while the Wild have won seven straight.
Oilers defenceman Evan Bouchard took a holding penalty 33 seconds into the game and the Wild capitalized when forward Joel Eriksson Ek stuffed a loose puck behind Edmonton goaltender Mikko Koskinen.
“He’s got to know where that puck is — coming from behind the net — but it’s just one of those breaks,” Oilers head coach Dave Tippett said of the game’s opening goal. “That’s a soft goal you’d like to see saved, so you’re chasing the game.
“The next one is a three-on-three rush, so we should defend better and we don’t. So you’re chasing the game from there on in.”
Despite some early pressure by the Oilers, the team fell behind 2-0 at the 7:14 mark when the Wild’s Marcus Foligno scored.
“I thought we had our looks but we probably didn’t win enough battles on the power play,” Oilers captain Connor McDavid said after the game.
Get daily National news
“You go through stretches where it doesn’t go in for you. We went through a long stretch where they were going in, and obviously this is one where it isn’t.”
The Oilers put together a strong second period, firing 20 shots on Talbot. Jesse Puljujarvi got the Oilers on the board, taking a pass from McDavid and wristing in his eighth goal of the season.
“He’s had a great stretch there while in (Minnesota)… He played some great hockey for us here in Edmonton and I like him a lot as a guy,” McDavid said of Talbot. “It’s good to see him have success.
“I wish he didn’t have success tonight, but he was good. He made a lot of good saves.”
Talbot made a great save on a Darnell Nurse one-timer earlier in the third. Less than a minute later, Victor Rask scored to make it 3-1 Minnesota. Wild defenceman Dmitry Kulikov added one more on a breakaway with 5:03 left.
“They got it to 3-1 and could sit back and defend hard. It makes it harder on you,” Tippett said.
The Oilers were 0-5 on the power play.
“There’s no panic. I think we need to get a little more urgent, but we’re not going to go 82-0,” Oilers forward Zack Kassian said after the game.
“There’s a lot of good hockey teams that face adversity, and to be honest, I think it’ll be good for us. It happens to every team.”
The Oilers (16-8) will host Boston on Thursday.
–With files from Brenden Escott, 630 CHED
Comments