Postgame Hat Trick: Wild 5, Oilers 1

Wild.com's Dan Myers gives three takeaways from the Wild's 5-1 win against the Edmonton Oilers at Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul on Tuesday night:

1. A clean sweep
The Oilers are a good hockey team. In all likelihood, they'll end up as the No. 2 seed in the Pacific Division and will host the first two games of a playoff series against either the Vegas Golden Knights or the Los Angeles Kings.
But the Wild has been their kryptonite all season, and were again on Tuesday night, stifling the high-powered Oilers duo of Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl, who entered the game ranked first and third, respectively, in the league in scoring this season.

Draisaitl scored Edmonton's lone goal in the game on a third-period power play, but the game was already 5-0 when he did so.
Three players in the NHL have at least 100 points this season, and two of them reside in Edmonton.
Yet there were the Wild, playing without Matt Dumba and Jon Merrill on the backend, not giving up much in the way of grade-A chances. And the ones they did give up were stopped by Cam Talbot, who ran his active point streak to 12 consecutive starts dating back to the beginning of March.

"We talked before the game that we shouldn't have to talk about our start. We should just be playing. We should just play like we play," said Wild coach Dean Evason. "That's what we did and that's how we play. That's when we have success. We're in on pucks. We're dislodging. We're having good sticks and we're getting opportunities because of it and not only in the offensive zone but in the defensive zone, too. We exited real well. They had a couple of sustained shifts, but for the most part we did a lot of real good things."
Twice in those three meetings, the Oilers entered red-hot, having won five-straight entering the last meeting in late February, and having earned a point in six consecutive before Tuesday, with the lone loss during that stretch coming in a 2-1 shootout defeat at the hands of the NHL's best team, Colorado, on Saturday night.
Minnesota won all three meetings against Edmonton this season, including the first two at Rogers Place, and all three wins were multi-goal victories, as the Wild finished the three games owning a combined score of 16-5.
2. Turnover Tuesday
The Wild were absolutely relentless on the forecheck in forcing a million defensive-zone turnovers from the Oilers, which resulted in a number of grade-A scoring chances and multiple goals.
OK, a million might be overshooting it a bit ... but not by much.

Each of the Wild's first four goals came directly off of Edmonton turnovers, with Freddy Gaudreau setting the tone by accepting a failed clear from Duncan Keith, cruising untouched to the middle of the ice and waiting out Oilers netminder Mikko Koskinen for a 1-0 lead just 5:37 into the contest.

Three more followed in the second, with Fiala burying a pair of goals 6 1/2 minutes apart to push the lead to three -- both off failed clears -- before Ryan Hartman capped an exciting middle frame after Kirill Kaprizov forced a turnover on a clearing attempt and fed Hartman all alone on top of the crease.

"Just great sticks on pucks," Fiala said. "It was a huge thing in our game, and we've talked about it the whole season - just dislodge the puck and get everybody around the puck and win the pucks back. Tonight, we saw a lot of that, so it's great to see."
The other key to playing the game, for the most part, was limiting penalties and staying disciplined. Minnesota didn't commit its first penalty until late in the second period and put Edmonton on three power plays the whole game.

"They try to capitalize on power plays and they're not great 5-on-5," Hartman said. "Obviously those guys have a lot of points, but we tried pressuring their D, pressuring their guys to turn pucks over. They were careless at times and we were really good."
Only Hartman's second of the night, which came 3:22 into the final period, came off an offensive zone set up where the Wild won a faceoff and worked the puck to Jordie Benn at the left point. His shot was stopped by Koskinen and Hartman cleaned up the loose change in front.
3. Keeping 'em quiet
The stuff Jonas Brodin does rarely ends up on highlight reels or in boxscores, but the veteran defenseman was named the third star of the game Tuesday because of the work he did in his own end, keeping McDavid off the scoresheet entirely.

"Just to watch him skate right? You watch him in practice and it's the same thing," Evason said. "He's just an elite skater. He loves to play the game. He's got a great personality. And I think what's underrated with him is he's as gritty as anybody. He doesn't shy away from the gritty areas. He defends in front of the net hard which makes him an elite defenseman in our league."
Not only did he keep the NHL's top scorer pointless on the night, but Brodin was a plus-3 in the process. He was quick to credit teammates as well, but Brodin quietly had a superb evening in the defensive zone in a game the defensive-minded blueliner said he looks forward to each time he sees Edmonton on the schedule.

"Yeah, it's fun you know? It's fun to play against the best players in the world," Brodin said. "But like I said, there's five guys on the ice too, it's not only just me. I think all five guys played really good against them, so it was good.
"I think the whole team gets up. They've got probably the two best players in the league and when you play them, you have to be ready on the ice, I think. We just tried to play them hard."
Edmonton's lone goal of the game came on the man advantage with the game already well in hand and frustration clearly setting in.

With so much speed in their forward group, Brodin's skating ability and speed moving backwards retrieving pucks caused the Oilers all kinds of problems.
"He's so fun to watch the way he goes back on pucks and he's able to escape," Hartman said of Brodin. "You know, he so calm. It looks like it's easy for him. He's one of our best defensemen at doing that. And I think one of the best in the league at doing that."

Loose pucks

• Minnesota's 263 goals this season ties the franchise record originally set in 2016-17
• The Wild is 9-0-1 in its past 10 games in St. Paul and 26-6-2 on home ice this season
• Minnesota has won six consecutive matchups against Edmonton
• Kaprizov had two assists for his 90th and 91st points of the season
• Hartman has 13 points in his past 14 games and stands just one goal shy of 30 on the year
• Gaudreau's goal was his 11th of the season
• Talbot made 27 saves to improve to 4-1-0 with a .955 save percentage and a 1.41 goals in five career starts against versus his former team
• Talbot is 9-0-2 during his 11-game point streak

Dan's three stars

1. Kevin Fiala
   2. Ryan Hartman
   3. Jonas Brodin

Highlights