Wild's top line overwhelms Oilers; Ryan Hartman nets hat trick
Ryan Hartman had a hat trick and two assists as the Minnesota Wild (3-2-1) dumped the Edmonton Oilers 7-4 Tuesday night in Minneapolis.
Evan Bouchard scored 54 seconds into the game when the Oilers won a draw in Minnesota’s defensive zone and Bouchard ripped a slap shot through traffic and past Filip Gustavsson for a 1-0 lead.
Marco Rossi deflected Ryan Hartman’s shot to tie the game 1-1 and then about 11 minutes passed before the final two minutes of the period saw Warren Foegele score with 1:33 remaining only to have Hartman score 34 seconds later for a 2-2 tie.
Foegele then scored his second of the night just 32 seconds into the second period, followed by Hartman netting his second of the game 38 seconds into the third period.
Then Minnesota went wild with four more goals, including another by Hartman for the hat trick. He finished the night with five points (three goals, two assists). His line mates, Kirill Kaprizov (three assists) and Mats Zuccarello (one goal, one assist) combined for 10 points.
Joel Eriksson Ek also had a goal and an assist and Marcus Foligno scored his first goal of the season on an empty net.
“It’s nice to see everybody get looks like that, right? That tells that we’re doing the right things to score goals and scoring goals the right way or chances the right way,” Wild coach Dean Evason said. "Every line had opportunities. Maybe that (top) line gets more of the points tonight, but if we do that, hopefully it can spread out throughout the entire group.”
Up next: Wild at Philadelphia, Thursday at 6:30 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.