{"id":940966,"date":"2026-10-21T06:16:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-21T06:16:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/940966\/"},"modified":"2026-10-21T06:16:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-21T06:16:09","slug":"oilers-ride-elite-power-play-to-win-over-tight-checking-wild","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/940966\/","title":{"rendered":"Oilers ride elite power play to win over tight-checking Wild"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cEvery once in a while, you need to get fed your lunch.\u201d \u2014 Mike Babcock.<\/p>\n

EDMONTON \u2014 That\u2019s a pretty good line. But on this night, the Minnesota Wild had a better one.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not often, here in Edmonton, that the other team ices the best line of the game. But at even strength, the Wild\u2019s top unit of Joel Eriksson Ek between Kirill Kaprizov and Matt Boldy was exactly that \u2014 waaaaay better than Connor McDavid<\/a>\u2019s line.<\/p>\n

How much better? Two even-strength goals to none.<\/p>\n

\u201cI like that kind of thing,\u201d said Oilers head coach Mike Babcock, after a stirring 4-3 overtime win for Edmonton, two points rescued by an Evan Bouchard<\/a> laser beam on the occasion of the defenceman\u2019s 27th birthday. \u201cEvery once in a while, you need to get fed your lunch. And when that happens to you, you say, \u2018What are we going to do to fix it?\u2019”<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you play a good team that’s organized, there’s no room,\u201d Babcock continued. \u201cAnd if you don’t look after the puck, if you don’t play right, you get frustrated. The great thing about the real good players that have done a lot of winning is, they don’t get frustrated. They just keep coming and keep coming, and they know it’s a patient game. You just keep plugging away and plugging away, and you’re going to get a break.\u201d<\/p>\n

On this night, the McDavid, Leon Draisaitl, Vasily Podkolzin unit took out their frustration on the Wild penalty killers.<\/p>\n

While Minnesota\u2019s best players saved their best work for even-strength hockey \u2014 but went 0-for-3 with the man advantage \u2014 McDavid\u2019s line cashed in with the man advantage to the tune of three goals. Draisaitl rifled home his first with under three seconds to play in Period 1, on a five-on-three advantage, and opened the second on the same power play just 63 seconds into Period 2.<\/p>\n

Then, when the Wild took a too-many-men penalty in overtime, the Oilers closed out their seventh win in nine games when Bouchard unleashed one of his patented wrist shots past Jesper Wallstedt.<\/p>\n

Defencemen are well known for having the hardest slapshots in the game. But Bouchard might just have the most potent wrist shot, which is truly rare.<\/p>\n

\u201cAny type of shot that he gets off is extremely dangerous,\u201d said Draisaitl. \u201cAccurate, hard, whatever it is. You name it, he\u2019s got it. He\u2019s pretty elite.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe can sling that thing,\u201d said Oilers goalie Devon Levi<\/a>, who duelled Wallstedt right to the end. \u201cA super special player. I\u2019m so happy for him that he got the overtime winner on his birthday.\u201d<\/p>\n

Speaking of special, McDavid (three assists) notched his 20th assist in his ninth game this season. He is the fastest player to get to 20 assists in NHL history<\/p>\n

That\u2019s right: NHL history.<\/p>\n

McDavid has 26 points through nine games, and is on pace for 242.<\/p>\n

On this night, however, a win over a very good Minnesota team will suffice, considering the Oilers\u2019 recent record against Minny. Edmonton was 4-14 in its previous 18 games against Minnesota, outscored on average by a count of 4.17 to 2.89.<\/p>\n

But in those games, the Oilers have endured a team save percentage of .856. They\u2019d lost four straight in Edmonton to the Wild, and seven of the previous nine.<\/p>\n

Levi changes things. He made a handful of incredible saves, to allow the Oilers a shot at the second point in OT \u2014 saves this team simply has not had in recent seasons.<\/p>\n

For a guy who was signed as the No. 3 goalie behind Frederik Andersen and Tristan Jarry, he stood before the post-game media as the clear No. 1 on an Edmonton team that\u2019s enjoying one of its best starts in franchise history at 7-1-1.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m super grateful to be here,\u201d he said. \u201cThis city is unbelievable, a true hockey city. I care a lot about these fans, they have welcomed me with open arms and the team here as well. I feel at home. I\u2019m just super grateful for the way that everything kind of unfolded and I\u2019m having a lot of fun every day.\u201d<\/p>\n

SPEC\u2019S CHECKS \u2014 \u00a0Edmonton\u2019s penalty kill is finding its feet. They held Utah, the top PP in the NHL, scoreless in two attempts Saturday. On Tuesday, the No. 2 Wild PP unit went 0-for-3 \u2026 Babcock said he expects Ryan Nugent-Hopkins back from injury for Thursday\u2019s visit by Carolina, Game 2 of this five-game homestand.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cEvery once in a while, you need to get fed your lunch.\u201d \u2014 Mike Babcock. EDMONTON \u2014 That\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":940967,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194294],"tags":[49,48,23752],"class_list":["post-940966","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-edmonton","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-edmonton"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/940966","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=940966"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/940966\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/940967"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=940966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=940966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=940966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}