LEFT OUT IN THE COLD
Sadly, the shutout wouldn’t go in Edmonton’s favour this time around.
Minnesota saw out their slim 1-0 victory after Wallstedt made 10 more saves, surviving a late six-on-four opportunity for the Oilers in the last minute and holding on to secure his fifth career shutout in only his 15th NHL game since being drafted in the first round (20th overall) by the Wild at the 2021 NHL Draft.
Vasily Podkolzin set up Evan Bouchard for a one-timer off the rush early in the period that needed Wallstedt to make a smart kick save to keep it out, while Skinner was looking focused at the other end by stopping a dangerous deflection from Nico Sturm at the other end of the ice in this goaltender’s duel.
Despite giving up a first-period goal, Skinner was having an excellent follow-up performance to his shutout on Saturday in Seattle, making sure he spread out when Eriksson Ek crashed his crease and fell onto him to keep the puck out of the net to keep it a one-goal game near the nine-minute mark before stopping another dangerous redirection – this time from Ryan Hartman – later in the frame.
Before the Oilers pulled their goalie, Connor McDavid created an excellent scoring chance for Zach Hyman in the crease when the captain went on a full end-to-end rush and got the puck back from his initial attempt before skating into the slot. The rebound fell to the skate of Hyman, but he could only kick it out the other direction after getting tied up with the stick of a Minnesota defender.
With the extra attacker, the Oilers showed great pressure keeping the puck in to extend their chance to tie things up late in the third period, before a tripping penalty on Matt Boldy against Connor McDavid at the blueline as the Wild looked to escape the zone made it six-on-four for the final 41.2 seconds.
Minnesota cleared the puck out of their own zone twice on Edmonton’s brief two-man power play, leaving the final few seconds to play out on a 1-0 victory for the Wild to extend their point streak to 12 games (10-0-2).