In St Paul, Ryan Hartman hit for a hat trick and five points on Tuesday night to lead the Wild to a 7-4 win over the visiting Edmonton Oilers.
“Felt good, yeah,” Hartman said. “We (Mats Zuccarello and Kirill Kaprizov) were able to find each other early. We kind of talked about it as a line. We’ve been watching some shifts together, and too many times we were trying to get inside or were forcing it a little bit. You know, I think we’ve kind of been keeping it and waiting for our moment to strike as opposed to forcing it. We’ve been holding onto it and making really good plays. That was the difference tonight.”
Filip Gustavsson made 24 saves in the Wild victory.
Evan Bouchard scored 54 seconds into the first period to give the Oilers a 1-0 lead.
Minnesota tied it, 1-1, at 7:47 on a strike by Marco Rossi.
In the spirit of trading, the Oilers took a 2-1 lead on Warren Foegele‘s fist of two on the night at 18:27.
Hartman tied it 34 seconds later at 2-2.
Foegele’s came with 34 seconds gone in the middle frame for a 3-2 lead to the Oilers.
The score stayed that way until Hartman scored his second with 38 seconds gone in the third for a 3-3 tie.
“It was frustrating going into the third knowing we should have been up, but we rallied and played really well in the third,” Hartman said.
Mats Zuccarello scored at 6:48 for a 4-3 lead to the Wild in the third.
“It’s exciting when you win and you contribute and help the team win,” Zuccarello said. “That’s obviously a good night. … You want to get as many wins and play solid games, but obviously it’s nice to contribute.”
Midway through the third, Joel Eriksson Ek pushed the lead to 5-3.
“It’s nice to see everybody get looks like that, right? That tells that we’re doing the right things to score goals and scoring goals the right way or chances the right way,” Wild coach Dean Evason said. “… Every line had opportunities. Maybe that (top) line gets more of the points tonight, but if we do that, hopefully it can spread out throughout the entire group.”
The Oilers’ Evander Kane trimmed the deficit to one at 5-4 at 12:55 off the power play.
“The easiest thing to do is to go to the negative, and I would say I thought there were a lot of really good signs for our team,” Oilers coach Jay Woodcroft said. “It’s disappointing not to close the game out as we were heading to the third period.”
Hartman finished his hat trick at 15:50 for a 6-4 lead to the Wild.
“It was frustrating going into the third knowing we should have been up, but we rallied and played really well in the third,” Hartman said.
Marcus Foligno scored into an empty net at 16-:37 for the 7-4 final.
Jack Campbell made 24 saves in the Oilers loss.
“Disappointing feeling in here,” Campbell said. “We scored enough to win. They made some really nice plays and capitalized. I’d love to make some more key saves for the guys and get two points.
“The most frustrating part about the game is we did respond. When they went up 5-3, we scored. … Looked like things were going our way and in a blink of an eye they make some good plays. Tough one.”
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