ST. PAUL, Minn. — Kirill Kaprizov had a goal and two assists for the Minnesota Wild in a 5-3 win against the Edmonton Oilers at Xcel Energy Center on Thursday.
Kaprizov extended his NHL career-high point streak to 10 games (six goals, 11 assists) and set a Wild record with a nine-game assist streak, passing Jim Dowd (2001-02).
“I just tried to play my game. That’s it,” Kaprizov said. “Good the team won and everybody played hard, strong. [We didn’t] Give up a lot of chances to Edmonton. We played well.”
Joel Eriksson Ek and Mats Zuccarello each had a goal and an assist, and Marc-Andre Fleury made 18 saves for Minnesota (11-9-2), which has won four of five.
“We need to win,” Wild coach Dean Evason said. “I don’t talk about it a lot, winning, but we need to win some games now. We need to put some games together. We need to have some separation now. We can’t just play a good game and then fall. off and make some mistakes, turn pucks over and give teams an opportunity. We have to continue to do what we’re doing and what we did tonight to string wins together.”
Video: EDM@MIN: Kaprizov, Boldy team up for a PPG in the 2nd
Leon Draisaitl and Connor McDavid each had a goal and an assist, and Jack Campbell made 25 saves for Edmonton (13-11-0), which had won three straight, including 5-4 against the Chicago Blackhawks on Wednesday.
“I think [fatigue on the second half of back to backs] are excuses,” Oilers coach Jay Woodcroft said. “For me, we put ourselves in position to play a good game, and it was tight. Found ourselves down, but the team pushed as hard as it could all the way to the very last few seconds. Unfortunately, made too many errors and they ended up in the back of our net.”
Draisaitl extended his goal streak to four games (five goals) on a power play to give Edmonton a 1-0 lead at 11:17 of the first period, one-timing a pass from Evan Bouchard from the right face-off circle.
Eriksson Ek tied it 1-1 with a power-play goal at 1:51. Kaprizov took a shot from the slot that bounced off the boards to Eriksson Ek, who extended his point streak to four games (one goal, six assists).
McDavid put the Oilers ahead 2-1 at 4:22 when he finished a 2-on-1 with Draisaitl.
“I think when you’re winning 2-1 halfway through the game, you’d like to see you get some points out of it,” McDavid said. “Give them credit. We made mistakes and they made us pay.”
Video: EDM@MIN: McDavid, Draisaitl combine for goal in 2nd
Kaprizov tied it 2-2 seven seconds into a power play, scoring from the slot at 10:53.
Frederick Gaudreau gave Minnesota a 3-2 lead at 13:59 with a backhand at the left post.
Sam Steele increased the lead to 4-2 at 3:13 of the third period, and Zuccarello tipped a Matt Dumba shot from the blue line at 11:48 to make it 5-2.
“All four lines can score for us,” Steel said. “You see it almost every night. Everybody’s contributing, so that’s huge for the team. We’re just hoping to sustain that.”
Klim Kostin scored his first goal of the season with four seconds remaining for the 5-3 final.
“I think when we got the lead, what we did well today, we kept pushing,” Eriksson Ek said. “We didn’t sit back, and I think we kept playing and just really held on to the puck and didn’t give too much. It was important for us to keep going and didn’t sit back.”
NOTES: Kaprizov got his 100th and 101st assists in his 158th NHL game, the fewest number of games to reach 100 assists among players to make their debut with the Wild (previously Mikko Koivu, 230 games). … Fleury (24,771 saves) passed Tony Esposito (24,761) for fourth most in NHL history behind Martin Brodeur (28,928), Roberto Luongo (28,409) and Patrick Roy (25,800). … Wild forward Matt Boldy had his three-game goal streak end. … Eriksson Ek has nine points (three goals, six assists) in his past six games. … McDavid’s assist was his 482nd, tying Bryan Trottier for fifth most by a player age 25 or younger. … The Oilers, who average 32.7 shots per game, were held to a season-low 21. … The Wild are 7-0-0 against the Oilers dating to Oct. 22, 2019.
.