In St Paul, the Wild’s Matt Boldy had a goal and two points on Monday and Minnesota defeated the Edmonton Oilers, 2-1.
Boldy hit for a goal in the first period to give the Wild a 1-0 lead.
Boldy scored on the power play at 12:36.
Minnesota improved to 15-11-2.
Marc-Andre Fleury made 20 saves in the Wild win.
“From [Fleury] out, we did the right things,” Minnesota coach Dean Evason said. “We were defending, and not only just playing defense. We were doing the right things offensively that we didn’t have to play as much defense. We held onto pucks. We didn’t blindly throw pucks through the neutral zone. We didn’t blindly throw pucks into the slot when it wasn’t there. When we do that, now they have a counter and a transition, and they can really hurt us. We liked our overall game.”
Connor McDavid’s goal streak ended at seven.
“We have a good power play,” Oilers defenseman Darnell Nurse said. “There were some chances across the goal line there. Give them credit, they checked harder.”
Zach Hyman scored for the Oilers at 14:11 of the first, on the power play to knot it at 1-1.
“It came down to one 5-on-5 goal against that we feel we could have handled better,” Oilers coach Jay Woodcroft said. “… We certainly had enough time to get the equalizer, just couldn’t find it tonight on a good goaltender and against a good team.”
Edmonton dropped to 16-13-0.
Frederick Gaudreau scored at 9:39 to give the Wild a 2-1 lead that Fleury will hold for the last half of the game in the win.
“It’s a big win,” Boldy said. “They’ve got some super players over there. I think just how good our [defense] core played kind of just speaks to how good they are. … It’s impressive.”
Stuart Skinner made 28 saves in the Oilers loss.
You must be logged in to post a comment.