Wild Warmup: Minnesota at Edmonton

The essentials

The Wild Warmup is presented by Bryant Heating and Cooling
EDMONTON -- Minnesota will begin a four-game Canadian road swing here on Sunday when it plays the Edmonton Oilers at Rogers Place.
The expansive trip, which begins and ends in the province of Alberta, heads east for two games on Ottawa and Toronto before concluding in Calgary on Saturday.
The Wild will try and get right on the trip, having lost two consecutive games for the first time in more than a month, and having allowed an uncharacteristic 16 goals over its past three games, going 1-2-0 during that span.
"We can't expect to come out here every night and score five goals. We gotta lock it down on D to help ourselves out," Wild forward Jordan Greenway said following a 6-2 loss to the Florida Panthers on Friday. "We didn't do well in our own zone, I don't think. We gave them too many chances. We gave him too many opportunities. We didn't help ourselves and against a good team it's gonna hurt you."
After ceding games to Winnipeg and Florida, the schedule won't get any easier. Three of the four teams on the upcoming trip are inside the playoff picture as of now, and Edmonton began play Saturday 4-0 since making a coaching change earlier this month.
"We usually don't let these things linger too long. We nip them in the bud pretty quick and we definitely have the confidence in this room to do it," said Wild goaltender Cam Talbot. "There's no doubt in my mind that we'll come up with a big effort on Sunday."
Just like in Winnipeg a couple of nights ago, the Wild scored the first goal of the game Friday versus Florida. And just like in Winnipeg, unfortunately, it was unable to build on that positive momentum, as Mason Marchment scored a pair of goals over the ensuing 5 1/2 minutes to even the game, then give the Panthers a lead it wouldn't relinquish.

Minnesota fell to 18-4-1 on the year when scoring the initial tally of the night, with half of those losses coming in the past 72 hours, a trend the Wild will try and break on its upcoming roadie.
"We were unintelligent ... And we haven't done that for a long time, and we had a good chat after the game that we never talk about obviously being better than a team or whatever but we weren't worse than that team tonight. We just made worse mistakes," said Wild coach Dean Evason. "Our start was great. Our energy level was great. The way we competed, how we were playing the game. We turned the puck over and another mistake on the second one and third. Then it snowballed on us.
"They're too good a team to come back on like that even though we fought at the end. But it's uncharacteristic. Winnipeg was a little alarming and now it's alarming again. It's a good chance for us to hopefully get the attention quickly and turn it around."
Edmonton is in the midst of a busy stretch of games and will be playing on the second half of back-to-backs after winning 4-2 win Winnipeg on Saturday afternoon.
The game Sunday marks Edmonton's eighth game in 13 nights, a stretch that began with back-to-back losses to Vegas and Chicago that resulted in the dismissal of head coach Dave Tippett, and the promotion of Todd Woodcroft, who was the head coach of the Oilers' AHL club in Bakersfield.
Since Woodcroft took over, Edmonton is 5-0 and has scored 22 goals over that stretch, while allowing only eight.
The meeting Sunday marks the second of three games between the clubs this season, with Minnesota securing a 4-1 win at Rogers Place on Dec. 7. Joel Eriksson Ek, Marcus Foligno, Victor Rask and Dmitry Kulikov, a former Oiler, scored goals for the Wild in that game while another former Edmonton product, goaltender Cam Talbot, made 38 saves.
Rask is no longer with Minnesota. He was placed on waivers on Friday and went unclaimed. He was sent to Iowa of the American Hockey League as the club recalled defenseman Calen Addison and activated forward Nick Bjugstad ahead of the trip.
The Wild is 19-7-1 in the last 27 games against the Oilers, including a 16-3-0 mark in its last 19 games in Edmonton.
The Oilers are led by arguably the top offensive duo in the NHL in Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl. McDavid is coming off a three-point afternoon on Saturday, scoring a goal and assisting on two others. He leads the club with 71 points and 45 assists while Draisaitl has a team-high 35 goals and 69 points.
Edmonton will be without forward Jesse Puljujarvi, who scored the Oilers' only goal in the December matchup. He'll miss the next month of action because of a lower-body injury.
Mikko Koskinen made 22 saves in the victory over the Jets on Saturday, putting veteran Mike Smith in line to start against the Wild. Smith is 5-4-1 in just 11 games -- all starts -- this season, with a 3.31 goals-against average and a .904 save percentage, but he has won his past three starts and is allowing just two goals per game over that span.