The Edmonton Oilers lost to the Minnesota Wild by a score of 1-0 at Rogers Place on Tuesday (Dec. 2). Minnesota’s Jonas Brodin scored the game’s only goal.
Wild goaltender Jesper Wallstedt made 33 saves to blank the Oilers. Edmonton netminder Stuart Skinner stopped 23 of the 24 shots he faced.
The loss drops Edmonton’s record to 11-11-5. With 27 points, the Oilers are currently sixth in the Pacific Division standings.
Oilers Play Well in Defeat
With the 2025-26 season nearly one-third complete, it might be a bit late for moral victories. Particularly in the case of a team that harbours championship expectations. But with that said, this was one of the better efforts by the Oilers in 2025-26, and their best performance in defeat all season.
Against the red-hot Wild, who are now 12-1-2 in their last 15 games, Edmonton was arguably the better team. Not only did the Oilers significantly outshoot Minnesota (33 to 24), they also held a huge edge in both puck in offensive zone time (23:22 to 15:48) and offensive zone possession time (7:38 to 3:07). Edmonton did a lot of good things on Tuesday.
Most importantly, Edmonton was structurally sound and to a man played mistake-free hockey for virtually the entire game. This represents important progress for the Oilers, who after allowing a ghastly 72 goals over their first 25 contests have now been scored on just once in the last two games. That includes a 4-0 win over the Seattle Kraken at Climate Pledge Arena on Saturday (Nov. 29), when Skinner made 26 saves for the shutout.
Oilers Haunted by Wallstedt
So if the Oilers did so many good things on Tuesday, why didn’t the result turn out in their favour? Because that’s just how hockey goes sometimes, especially when the opposition has a goalie who’s on an all-time heater: Minnesota didn’t give the Oilers a lot of opportunities, and on the few occasions that Edmonton did get a great scoring chance, Wallstedt was there to shut the door.
Wallstedt has now recorded a shutout in four of his last six appearances, becoming the first NHL rookie netminder to do that in 87 years. Overall, he’s won seven consecutive starts and is undefeated in regulation this season with a record of 8-0-2.
Watching Wallstedt put up a wall around his crease on Tuesday was particularly painful for Oilers fans, given how Edmonton passed on an opportunity to draft the Swedish netminder in 2021.
Related: Luca Munzenberger Is Latest Oilers’ Draft Failure From Ken Holland Era
In what is quickly becoming an infamous moment in Oilers history, Edmonton dealt the 20th overall selection to Minnesota in exchange for the 22nd and 90th selections; Minnesota then drafted Wallstedt at No. 20, while the Oilers took forward Xavier Bourgault with the 22nd pick, and drafted defenceman Lucas Munzenberger at No. 90. Four years later, Bourgault and Munzenberger are both history – neither are with the Oilers organization — while Wallstedt is making history.
Skinner Can’t Be Faulted for Loss
One shot was all it took to beat the Oilers, and that came from Brodin at 13:11 of the first period, directly off a draw inside Edmonton’s blue line to the right of Skinner. It wasn’t the prettiest of goals, and Skinner probably should have made the save, but by no means is the Oilers goaltender to blame for this loss. When you hold the opponent to one goal, your team should probably get the win.
Just as the Oilers have shored things up defensively in their last couple games, Skinner has been much sharper between the pipes. If the netminder and his teammates continue to play like this, they’re going to start winning with much greater frequency than they have thus far in 2025-26.
“I thought overall it was a pretty good game,” Oilers coach Kris Knoblauch said during the post-game press conference. “Obviously you’re disappointed any time you lose, and you look for the negatives, you look to critique the things we didn’t do to get the win. I thought they had some chances, Stu came up with some big saves, but overall, I thought we played a game where more often than not that we’d come out victorious and are feeling good about ourselves.
“But I think we had probably not enough quality chances,” Knoblauch continued. “I think we had a lot of possession time, shot attempts, shots on net, I’d have to look back on it, but right now from what I’m seeing, I’m disappointed that we lost, but it was more of what we need.”
Edmonton continues its five-game homestand when it hosts the Kraken at Rogers Place on Thursday (Dec. 4).
