Wild 3, Oilers 1
Defensemen Brent Burns and Jared Spurgeon netted power-play goals to lead the Minnesota Wild to a 3-1 road victory over the Edmonton Oilers on Friday in a battle of Northwest Division rivals.
Pierre-Marc Bouchard and Mikko Koivu collected three assists apiece, Andrew Brunette added an empty-net tally and Jose Theodore made 28 saves for Minnesota. With the victory, the Wild snapped a three-game losing streak and won for just the third time in their last 14 contests.
A chaotic first period included over 80 minutes in penalties before Burns scored his 17th goal of the season at the 14:30 mark of the session. The defenseman accepted a feed from Koivu and snapped it from the right faceoff circle past Devan Dubnyk. It was Burns’ eighth power-play tally of the season.
Spurgeon doubled the advantage just 1:25 into the second when the Edmonton native took a pass from Bouchard on the doorstep and stuffed it past Dubnyk.
The Oilers would get one back on Teemu Hartikainen’s shorthanded tally 1:27 later, but could get nothing else done against Theodore.
Brunette capped it with 49 seconds left in the third, tossing the puck into the empty net to seal the win.