The red-hot Edmonton Oilers rallied from an early two-goal deficit to defeat the Minnesota Wild 5-3 at Xcel Energy Center on Wednesday (Jan. 15).
Connor McDavid scored twice for the Oilers, who also got one goal apiece from Zach Hyman, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Vasily Podkolzin. Matt Boldy, Ryan Hartman and Marco Rossi tallied for Minnesota. Oilers netminder Calvin Pickard made 31 saves in a winning effort, while Minnesota’s Filip Gustavsson was beaten five times on 36 shots.
Related: Edmonton Oilers Come From Behind & Beat Minnesota Wild 5-3
Edmonton has now won three straight games and seven of its last eight. In their last 30 games, the Oilers are 22-6-2, which is the best record in the NHL over that stretch.
Oilers Stage Another Comeback
Boldy scored on the power play just 3:02 into the game, staking Minnesota to a 1-0 lead. The Wild then made Edmonton pay for an ill-advised penalty by Oilers blueliner Josh Brown, when Rossi scored his team’s second power-play goal with 3:49 remaining in the first period.
But the Oilers answered on the ensuing shift, with Hyman putting the puck past Gustavsson at 16:32. One minute and 54 seconds later, McDavid scored his first of the night on the power play, and suddenly the score was deadlocked at 2-2 heading towards the first intermission.
Edmonton fell behind again when Hartman scored at 4:09 of the second period, but that would be Minnesota’s last goal of the night. Nugent-Hopkins tied things up with 5:45 remaining in the middle frame, before Podkolzin and McDavid tallied in the third period to lift Edmonton to victory.
This was already the Oilers’ fourth win this season after falling behind 2-0, and the second time they have stormed back from a two-goal first-period deficit in their last three games. They are now 11-10-0 when the opposition scores first, making the Oilers one of only six teams in the NHL that have a winning record when they don’t get the first goal.
Depending on one’s perspective, these numbers could be either encouraging or concerning. Edmonton is showing tremendous jam by shaking off early deficits to storm back, but the Oilers can’t get so confident in their ability to rally that they make a habit of falling behind early.
“I think our guys like a challenge. Unfortunately, it’s making me age a little quicker than I’d like,” Oilers coach Kris Knoblauch joked during his post-game media availability. “I’d like us to get up (by) three early and just cruise to a nice victory, but the guys dig in, and obviously they can handle adversity when things aren’t going well. They don’t pack it in, which I absolutely love the character of this team.”
Pickard Praised for Performance
Incredibly, three of Edmonton’s four wins after falling behind 2-0 have come with Pickard between the pipes. In fact, the opposition has scored first in 11 of his 15 starts, and Edmonton is 8-3-0 in those games.
Again, these are stats that can be looked at from varying perspectives: is it more concerning that Pickard gives up a lot of early goals, or encouraging that’s he able to lock it down to help his team rally?
One thing that everyone can agree on is that the Oilers don’t win this game without Pickard’s stellar performance. The veteran netminder made some tremendous saves, particularly in the second period. Less than a minute into the middle frame, he stopped Joel Eriksson Ek on a two-on-none for the Wild after a bad giveaway by Oilers defenceman Darnell Nurse. Then at a key juncture midway through the game, he stopped three Wild shots in a chaotic 25-second span, keeping Edmonton’s deficit to just one.
“He was outstanding,” Knoblauch said of Pickard, who was named the game’s second star. “The chances that we gave up (were) high-quality chances, and there’s going to be those chances occasionally just because it happens; you can’t play a perfect game. But we definitely had more chances against high-quality than we would like to give up, and some of those saves, acrobatics, it was something. It was a great game by him. Not too often you say, ‘Oh he was spectacular,’ after letting in three on 30 shots, but he was.”
Pickard is now 11-4-0 this season with a 2.57 goals-against average (GAA) and .897 save percentage (SV%). The 32-year-old continues to prove a dependable backup for Stuart Skinner.
McDavid Moves Ahead of Kurri
In addition to scoring twice, McDavid assisted on Hyman’s goal, giving the Oilers captain three points on the night. With that, he overtakes Hall-of-Fame forward Jari Kurri for second place in franchise history with 1,044 regular season points, from 354 goals and 690 assists in 686 games. Kurri recorded 474 goals and 569 assists for 1,043 points in 754 regular season games as an Oiler.
Only one player remains ahead of McDavid on Edmonton’s all-time points list, and that’s Wayne Gretzky, who piled up 1,669 points in the regular season with the Oilers. If the 28-year-old McDavid continues to produce at his career rate of 1.52 points per game, he would need to play another 412 games with Edmonton to pass “The Great One”. That’s the equivalent of more than five full seasons.
Meanwhile, McDavid moved ahead of another Hall-of-Famer, Daniel Sedin, for the 81st most regular season points all-time in the NHL. Sedin recorded 1,041 points over 17 seasons in his legendary career with the Vancouver Canucks.
There is no rest for McDavid and the Oilers, who are right back in action tonight (Jan. 16) against the Colorado Avalanche at Ball Arena. A victory would pull Edmonton into a tie with the Vegas Golden Knights for first place in the Pacific Division. The Golden Knights have 61 points in 44 games, while Edmonton has 59 points in 44 games.
