PREVIEW: Oilers vs. Wild

The Edmonton Oilers welcome the Minnesota Wild to Rogers Place on Tuesday night to begin a five-game homestand.

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PREVIEW: Oilers vs. Wild

EDMONTON, AB – Home to begin the holidays.

The Edmonton Oilers will start a five-game homestand at Rogers Place on Tuesday night with a visit from the streaking Minnesota Wild, who’ll begin their Western Canadian tour in Oil Country following the Central Division side’s successful month of November.

The Wild assembled an 11-1-2 record last month as one of the hottest teams in the NHL alongside their division rivals in the Colorado Avalanche, who they beat 3-2 in a shootout on Friday in the first of back-to-back home games to extend their win streak to seven games before falling to the Buffalo Sabres by the same exact scoreline on Saturday.

“I think the guys are ready and committed to playing some good hockey, especially defensively, and this will be a good test,” Head Coach Kris Knoblauch said. “Next to Colorado, they’ve probably the hottest team in the NHL and have been playing really well.”

Minnesota sits third in the Central Division with a 14-7-5 record behind only the Avalanche (18-1-6) and the Stars (17-5-4) – the last two opponents who came into Rogers Place and earned significant victories with 9-1 and 8-3 results over the Oilers.

Forward Kirill Kaprizov currently owns the NHL's longest active goal streak at six games, while Matt Boldy's 10 goals tied him for the third-most in the League during November behind Morgan Geekie (11), Brandon Hagel (11) and Jason Robertson (13).

Fresh off a 4-0 victory over the Seattle Kraken on Saturday, the Oilers played one of their most complete games of the season on the West Coast and are looking to keep that intensity up heading into a solid stretch of home games until the start of the Olympic Break in February.

“Just more of the same,” forward Adam Henrique said. “You gotta come out with that emotion. There’s a really good team coming in that's been hot and playing really well, so you gotta have that right from the start. Then, no matter where the game goes, you gotta be able to continually ramp that up and fill the details that we talk about all over the ice.”

Sitting at 11-10-5 this season, the Oilers are coming out of one of their toughest stretches of the campaign, having spent 16 of their first 24 games on the road that included two trips out East for lengthy road trips – the last of which for them is set to come later this month with a five-game road trip that starts with the first of back-to-back in Toronto on Dec. 13.

“The road trip I came back on, we had seven games in 13 nights,” said Zach Hyman, who made his season debut in Carolina on Nov. 15. “There's no excuse. Everybody goes through stretches like that during the year, but ours came early. Make of that what you will. We still wanted to play better, but we're fortunate now to be in a spot where we have five home games coming up and can really vault ourselves up if we start playing well.”

After their next Eastern road trip, the Oilers will not play a game outside the Pacific, Mountain and Central time zones for the rest of the regular season, lessening the impact of travel and providing extra value to their 32 remaining home games.

“It’s a big stretch for us,” Hyman said. “We’ve played a lot of road hockey, and to establish our game at home, we're usually very good here, and it's a fun building to play in. We've got the most amazing fans, so it makes it easy to come to the rink every day and play.

“ It's going to be a good stretch for us to get back on track, and Saturday was a good start.”

The Oilers are eager to replicate the energy and performance they brought to Seattle in Saturday's 4-0 shutout victory, when they went perfect on special teams and received a 26-save shutout from Stuart Skinner while operating with intensity right from puck drop.

Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, who made his return from a nine-game injury absence in Seattle, got the Oilers started with a power-play goal 11:29 into the first period before they all stood at the red line after the end of the opening 20 minutes to challenge forward Mason Marchment for a questionable blindside hit he delivered on Darnell Nurse earlier in the frame.

The bench's show of togetherness really helped rally the group to a much-needed victory, with the penalty kill showing resilience by going 6-for-6 – having been led by Skinner between the pipes with 12 saves while shorthanded, including a lengthy five-on-three for the Kraken in the middle frame.

"I thought we defended much better and gave up fewer chances, but I also like our players' engagement," Knoblauch said. "They were a little bit fired up, and we took some more penalties than we would like to, but there was a lot of energy and a lot of togetherness on the bench and on the ice, which I think is very important to play an entire season.

"I think it doesn't happen overnight. You build towards where you want to go, and I thought that Saturday was a very good step. We have the pieces to continue to grow and build to become the team that we all expect this team to be."

Nugent-Hopkins was one of four players who recorded a goal and an assist on Saturday for the Oilers, but his contributions on the power play and penalty kill showed exactly what his team was missing during his nine-game injury absence. The longest-tenured Oiler had a solid return at even strength as well between Adam Henrique and Mattias Janmark on the third line.

"You look at how Ryan touched the game the other night, and the [five-on-three], there's a turning point in the game possibility," Knoblauch said. "And then on the other side of it, power play, we go for 2-for-2, and he gets one of the goals. Then also at five on five, he's a tremendous player.

"I thought his line with Rico and Janny together, you feel that they can chip in offensively. But certainly, those three guys are probably our three best penalty-killing forwards, so you have those guys on the line together, they should be pretty reliable against other teams' top units."

Hyman also scored his first goal of the season on a lucky bounce off his skate from a shot-pass from Leon Draisaitl on Edmonton's second power play.

The Oilers will be without defenceman Jake Walman on Tuesday against the Wild after Coach Knoblauch confirmed he's still unable to go from a lower-body injury he sustained on Nov. 20 against the Lightning during their previous road trip.