The Edmonton Oilers extended their winning streak to six games with a 4-3 victory over the Minnesota Wild at Rogers Place on Friday (Dec. 8).
Evan Bouchard scored twice for the Oilers, who also got goals from Leon Draisaitl and Connor McDavid. Edmonton goalie Stuart Skinner stopped 17 of 20 shots to win his sixth consecutive start.
Edmonton doubled up Minnesota on the shot count, firing 40 picks at Wild goalie Marc-Andre Fleury. Matt Boldy, Connor Dewar, and Joel Eriksson Ek each had a goal for the visitors.
The red-hot Oilers have now won nine of their last 12 games after starting the season with only two wins in their first 12 games. Edmonton is 8-3-0 since firing head coach Jay Woodcroft and assistant coach Dave Manson and replacing them with Kris Knoblauch and Paul Coffey, respectively.
Here are three takeaways from this latest Edmonton win that demonstrate how the Oilers have turned their season around.
Bouchard Bringing it for Oilers
Evan Bouchard opened and closed the scoring on Friday, giving the Oilers a 1-0 lead late in the first period, and breaking a 3-3 tie with a goal just 1:32 into the final period. He also assisted on McDavid’s second-period goal.
The 24-year-old defenseman now has points in 10 straight games, with totals of four goals and 11 assists over that stretch. He’s only the second defenseman in Oilers history with a point streak of at least 10 games, joining the Hall-of-Famer Coffey.
It’s Coffey’s coaching that many attribute to the recent play of Bouchard, who has a plus-4 rating over the last six games after tallying a minus-9 rating in Edmonton’s first 18 games. While Bouchard has never lacked offensive ability, he was an absolute abomination defensively at the start of this season, and it’s the latter area that he’s improved upon in the last several games.
That said, there is still much work to be done: Minnesota’s second goal was the result of Bouchard misreading the switch on a two-on-two rush for the Wild, leaving Eriksson Ek unchecked to score on Skinner. But these are growing pains the Oilers will live with as long as Bouchard keeps showing up in the scoring summary. For the season, Bouchard now has 24 points, fifth most among blueliners in the NHL.
Oilers Show Resilience After Trailing
For the first several weeks of this season, the Oilers couldn’t seem to stop the opposition’s momentum. Once it got going, it was like a boulder rolling down the hill with the Oilers at the bottom about to get squashed.
In an 8-1 loss to the Vancouver Canucks on Oct. 12, Edmonton gave up four goals in a span of 7:05. In a 6-2 defeat versus the Canucks on Nov. 7, the Oilers blew an early lead by allowing three goals in 3:22.
The Oilers watched a late 4-3 lead turn to a 6-4 loss at the hands of the Tampa Bay Lightning on Nov. 18, when the Bolts scored three unanswered goals over the final 10:32 of the game. On Nov. 22, Edmonton lost 6-3 at PNC Arena, where the host Carolina Hurricanes scored four times over a span of 5:31 to take a 4-0 first-period lead.
Related: 3 Takeaways From Oilers’ Third Straight Road Loss to Hurricanes
Even against this same Wild team, in St. Paul on Oct. 24, Edmonton lost 7-4 after taking a 3-2 lead into the third period. That’s why it was so encouraging to finally see on Friday that went the going got tough, the Oilers got going.
Minnesota threatened to break the game open, scoring twice in the opening minute of the second period to go ahead 2-1. But 40 seconds after Eriksson Ek put Minnesota in front, McDavid responded by scoring on a jaw-dropping individual effort to bring Edmonton even. And when the Wild again took the lead, on Dewar’s goal midway through the second, the Oilers answered back with Draisaitl scoring before the intermission.
This was the Oilers’ second win of the season when trailing at any time after the first period. On Nov. 30, Edmonton scored three times over the final 6:49 to beat the Winnipeg Jets 3-1.
Breaks Now Going Oilers’ Way
During their three-game losing streak that preceded this current six-game win streak, the Oilers suffered from a serious lack of luck.
For instance, in Edmonton’s defeat at the hands of the ‘Canes on Nov. 22, Carolina scored one goal after it bounced off two players and another on a two-on-one that was the result of Oilers forward Connor Brown blowing a tire. The game before that, a 5-3 loss to the Florida Panthers, Edmonton’s Evander Kane inadvertently knocked the puck into his team’s net while trying to fend off an odd-man rush by the Panthers that was the result of Oilers blueliner Philip Broberg tripping over a broken stick.
Well, fortune was certainly on the Oilers’ side Friday. During the opening moments of the third period, Kane hit Wild rearguard Jonas Brodin from behind, a play that arguably deserved a major penalty. But Kane wasn’t whistled for an infraction, and instead, Minnesota’s Ryan Hartman took a roughing penalty when the Wild forward retaliated. Then, on the ensuing power play, Bouchard scored what would prove to be the game-winning goal.
The Oilers got another big break as they clung to their one-goal lead with 90 seconds remaining when Hartman appeared to have Skinner beat glove side but rattled the puck off the post.
As the old saying goes, you’ve got to be good to be lucky and lucky to be good. The Oilers were not playing good hockey two and a half weeks ago. They are now, and the Oilers will look to continue that trend when they host the New Jersey Devils for a matinee at Rogers Place on Sunday (Dec. 10).
