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Kaprizov survives injury scare, Fleury survives early gaffe as Wild win again: 4 takeaways

22 November 2024Last Update :
Kaprizov survives injury scare, Fleury survives early gaffe as Wild win again: 4 takeaways

EDMONTON — You can breathe easier back in the Twin Cities.

The Wild beat the Oilers 5-3 and Kirill Kaprizov is good and well.

Just as every Wild fan was either guzzling indigestion medicine 0r screaming expletives — or maybe both — Kaprizov returned to the bench not long after an open-ice collision sent him to the locker room and just as Freddy Gaudreau scored a second-period separator goal for the eventual winner during the Wild’s latest road victory.

The Wild lead the league with nine wins in 12 road games and 20 points outside of Minnesota. Overall, they have the second most points in the NHL with 29.

Late in the second, Kaprizov was checked as he was carrying the puck up the ice by the Oilers fourth-liner Drake Caggiula. It wasn’t clear immediately what bothered Kaprizov, but Kaprizov got nailed on the inside of the right knee and also wasn’t hit squarely on the right side of the upper body.

Matt Boldy fought Caggiula in a quick bout as a result, but Kaprizov was back for his final shift of the second period.

Kaprizov tied Nathan MacKinnon for the NHL scoring lead with 34 points and extended his road point streak to a franchise-record 11 games with an assist on Boldy’s first-period goal.

Gaudreau would add a second goal for his second three-point night of the season. Foligno scored a goal and assist, Marcus Johansson scored a goal and Ryan Hartman had two assists.

In his first start in two weeks, Marc-Andre Fleury survived a first-shift boo-boo and made 29 saves to improve to 4-0-1. He played his 1,030th game, passing Patrick Roy for the third-most in NHL history behind Martin Brodeur (1,266) and Roberto Luongo (1,044).

The Wild’s 63 wins, 136 points and 30 road wins all-time against the Oilers are their most against any team. Since the start of the 2010-11 season, the Wild are 19-5 in their past 24 visits to Edmonton. On Thursday they got the Oilers without Zach Hyman, Darnell Nurse and Viktor Arvidsson, all out with injury, and under-the-weather Travis Dermott.

Connor McDavid finished with one assist. Entering the game, in the past six seasons, the Wild held McDavid to just 1.2 points per game — second-lowest in the NHL behind Vegas (1.15).

The Wild flew south to Calgary after the game for a Saturday afternoon date with the Flames.

Wild suddenly getting depth scoring

It’s no longer just Kaprizov and Boldy supplying the offense.

One game after Hartman scored the first goal in St. Louis and the Johansson-Marco Rossi-Hartman line helped set up Jonas Brodin’s winner, the Wild got goals from Foligno, Johansson and Gaudreau.

Foligno crashed the net on his goal, Johansson forced a turnover on his goal and Gaudreau supplied a much-appreciated two-goal lead. He’d later add another goal for his second two-goal game of the season.

Fleury’s forgettable first shift

Just 27 seconds after becoming the fourth goalie to start 1,000 games, Fleury swung and missed trying to steer a bouncing puck into the corner for a 1-0 Oilers lead.

The sequence of events for this goal to happen was bonkers.

Leon Draisaitl cleared the puck out of his own zone from 134 feet away. It clipped Kaprizov’s left skate and began rolling and bouncing. It somehow slid by McDavid, through Jake Middleton’s legs and at the last second skipped into the air and over Fleury’s paddle for Draisaitl’s 13th even-strength goal of the season. It was the Oilers’ eighth goal of the season in the first five minutes of the game.

Fleury got a smattering of “FLEURY” taunts from the Oilers faithful and a loud Bronx cheer when he made his first save.

Fleury settled in and ran the gamut of classic Fleury plays, like lunges, poke checks and barrel rolls.

Trenin’s first goal taken off the board

Yakov Trenin is now 19 games into his Wild career without a goal.

But he briefly thought he scored his first to tie the score less than two minutes after Draisaitl’s fluky goal. But upon further review, after a coach’s challenge by Edmonton, Foligno was deemed offside by a whisker.

Opponents are now 3-1 against the Wild on offside challenges this season.

Trenin had scored off Foligno’s rebound.

Trenin had his ninth shotless game in 19 this season and fourth in a row. But he played a solid game, especially defensively, getting physical with four hits and on two third-period penalty kills. The Wild have killed 19 of their last 20 opposing power plays.

Shore makes his Wild debut

One game after Ben Jones made his Wild debut in St. Louis, former Oilers forward Devin Shore got his shot in his old stomping grounds.

This wasn’t some newbie like Jones, who was playing his third NHL game. Thursday was Shore’s 444th after playing for Dallas, Anaheim, Columbus and Edmonton.

He played on the fourth line with Jakub Lauko and Marat Khusnutdinov. Shore had a great scoring chance in the first period when he skated in on a partial breakaway but hit the post.

Shore, 30, says he isn’t bothered by suddenly becoming an up-and-down depth player at this stage of his career.

“It’s still playing hockey for a living, which is the best job ever,” Shore said. “And you learn to appreciate the days you do spend up here. Very grateful. There’s definitely no bad days in this league.”

(Photo of Marcus Johansson: Perry Nelson / Imagn Images)

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