• Wild silence Connor McDavid
• Oilers have tough night defensively
• Wild outperform Oilers in every facet
EDMONTON — “Catastrophic mistakes,” assessed the head coach.
“It’s embarrassing,” added defenceman Kris Russell, who was minus-four on the night. “Especially on my part.”
It was a bad night to have a bad night, and the Minnesota Wild punished the Edmonton Oilers 5-2 for their troubles.
Just hours after Wild head coach Bruce Boudreau had marvelled at a Minnesota club that has made a habit of cashing in on offensive chances, the usually steady Russell tested that theory with some rough work in his own end.
He and the rest of the Oilers failed that test, getting a tough lesson from the Western Conference’s best club. The game, between the Central Division leading Wild and Edmonton, which came into the game tied for first in the Pacific with Anaheim, was never in doubt.
“No excuses. I wasn’t good enough,” said Russell. “They’re a good team. I just wasn’t ready. Got out-battled, outskated. I don’t know what else to tell you.
“I’ve been in the league long enough. I shoulda figured it out.”
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It wasn’t the Kris Russell that Todd McLellan has come to know this season.
“I think that’s a very fair assessment,” the coach said. “Self-evaluation is important. They’re not fooling themselves, so give them credit for manning up. He wasn’t the only one.
“Kris Russell isn’t the only one who had a tough night.”
Connor McDavid has never gone three NHL games without a point in his career. In a bit of a twist on that, McDavid went pointless against backup Darcy Kuemper — the third time this season the Wild have shut McDavid out completely.
“That’s just a testament to our team doing a great job when he’s on the ice, recognizing where he is and staying above him and trying to make it as hard as possible for him,” said Kuemper, who was very good early on to give his team time to exert their superior game on Edmonton.
“We wanted to start this road trip off on the right foot here,” said Chris Stewart, a depth player on this Wild team who scored his 11th goal of the season. “We have four big road games and this was a hot team here. It was a good test and we answered the bell.”
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“Answered” the bell? They cut the bell up and fed it to Edmonton piece by piece on this night, though to be fair, it was a very rare poor performance for the Oilers of late.
Edmonton had won seven of its past eight games, and picked up a loser point in the lone loss. They couldn’t keep up with a Wild team that took a 3-0 lead, however, then scored rather shortly after each Oilers goal the rest of the way.
In the end, it was the Wild’s sheer economy of effort that prevailed.
Outshot 43-35, Minnesota was credited with missing the net only eight times all night. On the giveaway chart, they doused Edmonton four to 21. Minnesota won 57 per cent of the faceoffs, and showed why they have a plus-54 goals differential, scoring three even strength goals, then simply managing the game from that point on.
“When you are giving up that many point-blank shots in front of the net, I don’t care what team you are playing or who you have in net, you are not going to win hockey games,” said Milan Lucic, who set up Leon Draisaitl’s 20th of the season.
He also watched Cam Talbot get the hook as Laurent Broissoit came on and allowed one goal in nearly 23 minutes of work.
“You can add up the distance from the net of all their goals put together,” Lucic said, “and I don’t think it goes from the goal-line to the blue line. That’s not on the goaltender.”
