Wild stay in hunt with impressive road win over Edmonton
Staying in the hunt is all that matters for the Minnesota Wild and they did what they needed to do Friday night with a 4-2 road victory over the Edmonton Oilers.
Matt Boldy scored twice and Filip Gustavsson made 41 saves as the Wild won for the sixth time in the past eight games (6-1-1) to improve to 27-24-6 this season. With 60 points in 57 games, Minnesota is just two points out of the final wild card spot in the Western Conference playoff race.
Gustavsson was a monster. He stopped all 37 shots he faced at even strength and made 23 saves in the third period. The only goals he allowed came when the Oilers were on the power play.
The game was tied 1-1 until Jonas Brodin put Minnesota ahead 2-1 at the 9:31 mark of the third period. Less than three minutes later Boldy's second of the night gave the Wild a two-goal cushion and they held on for the 4-2 win, with the final goal going to Mats Zuccarello on an empty net with 1:27 remaining.
Connor McDavid had two assists, giving him an NHL best 66 this season for the Oilers.
Up next: Wild at Seattle, Saturday at 9 p.m. CT.
Title: Bring Me The Sports co-owner, editor Email: joe@bringmethenews.com Twitter: @JoeBMTN Education: Southwest Minnesota State University Location: Minneapolis, Minnesota Expertise: All things Minnesota sports Nelson has covered Minnesota sports for two decades, starting his media career in sports radio. He worked at small market Minnesota stations in Marshall and St. Cloud before joining one of the nation's highest-rated sports stations, KFAN-FM 100.3 in the Twin Cities. There, he was the producer of the top-rated mid-morning sports show with Minnesota Vikings announcer Paul Allen. His radio experience helped blossom a career as a sports writer, joining Minneapolis-based Bring Me The News in 2011. Nelson and Adam Uren became co-owners of Bring Me The News in 2018 and have since more than tripled the site's traffic and launched Bring Me The Sports in cooperation with the Sports Illustrated/FanNation umbrella. Nelson has covered the Super Bowl and numerous training camps, NFL combines, the MLB All-Star Game and Minnesota playoff games, in addition to the day-to-day happenings on and off the field of play. Nelson also has extensive knowledge of non-sports subjects, including news and weather. He works closely with Bring Me The News meteorologist Sven Sundgaard to produce a bevy of weather and climate information for Minnesota readers. Nelson helped launch and manage the Bring Me The News Radio Network, which provided more than 50 radio stations around Minnesota with daily news, sports and weather reports from 2011-17.