*Photo from the San Diego Union Tribune*
The Wild are playing like their namesake right now. Matt Boldy scored two goals, Filip Gustavsson had a strong game in net, and the Minnesota Wild defeated the Edmonton Oilers with a 4-2 victory on Friday night in Edmonton.
The Wild won for the 6th time in 8 games by taking down the Oilers, handing them their second straight loss as the Wild now own a 27-24-6 record. Boldy's two goals made him the only multi point player for the Wild, with 9 total skaters recording a point.
Boldy said of the win that "We needed to get the job done and play well, and I thought we played well tonight. There was a little bit of a lull in the second period, but you expect that against a team like this and the guys that they have. To be able to weather the storm, and ‘Gus’ made some huge saves, and ‘D’ blocking shots and stuff, and forwards doing a good job. It was a whole team effort, it was nice."
Starting the scoring in the game was Boldy, who had the only goal of the first period to make it a 1-0 lead for the Wild. Leon Draisaitl scored in the second period for the Oilers, tying the game 1-1 after two. Jonas Brodin gave the Wild a 2-1 lead 9:31 into the 3rd period on his 5th goal of the season, assisted by Kirill Kaprizov and Declan Chisholm.
At the 12:18 mark of the 3rd, Boldy scored his second goal of the game to put the Wild ahead 3-1 with Marcus Johansson and Ryan Hartman assisting. Zach Hyman scored on the power play for the Oilers to cut the deficit to 3-2. With 1:27 left to play and the net empty, Mats Zuccarello scored his 11th goal of the season to seal the 4-2 win.
Gustavsson said after the game that "We didn’t have that offense in the first two periods where we spent a lot of time in their zone, making their top lines get frustrated and spending time defensively. We let them roll around in our zone and try to sort it out and they had a few chances, and we managed to hold on."
It was Gustavsson who was the netminder for the Wild, picking up the win with a heavy workload. Gustavsson stopped 41 of the 43 shots he was tested with by the Oilers, good for a stellar .953 save percentage. His record improves to 16-13-3 in 33 starts.
Getting the start between the pipes for the Oilers was Calvin Pickard, who was handed the loss as his record dropped to 7-3-0. Pickard turned aside 16 out of the 19 shots on goal the Wild sent his way, recording a .842 save percentage.
Edmonton head coach Kris Knoblauch said of the loss that "I thought we did a lot of good things, but one thing we didn’t do well was finish. There were a lot of pucks that either hit goal posts or trickled wide or were lying around the crease. Sometimes those go in and some nights they don’t. Tonight we were unfortunate in that area."
Both teams play on Saturday night as they finish the second end of a back to back. Marc-Andre Fleury is set to start for the Wild as they tangle with the Seattle Kraken, while Stuart Skinner will go for the Oilers in a rivalry game against the Calgary Flames.
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