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Wild hand Oilers ninth straight loss

Mar 16, 2007 - 5:23 AM EDMONTON, Alberta (Ticker) -- Nicklas Backstrom's solid play in goal kept the Edmonton Oilers from their first victory in three weeks.

Backstrom made 22 saves and Mark Parrish and Marian Gaborik scored goals as the Minnesota Wild posted a 2-1 triumph over the woeful Oilers, who dropped their ninth straight game.

The Wild (41-24-7) won their fifth consecutive game and raised their record to 9-1-2 in their last 12 contests. The win kept them one point in back of the Vancouver Canucks (42-23-6) for first place in the Northwest Division race.

"We know if we play our game, play with intensity and play within our system, and everybody buys in, we're going to give ourselves a chance to win every night," Parrish said. "We have that confidence right now. If we go out and play our game, we're going to be fine."

"Our goal is to get home-ice advantage in the playoffs," Gaborik said. "We've been playing really good hockey and we can win our division, but we have to beat the teams that are lower and struggling and take advantage."

In winning his fourth straight decision, the 29-year-old Backstrom stopped 10 shots in the first period and six in the second before yielding a goal to Robert Nilsson with 3:57 left.

"The defense made it pretty easy for me," Backstrom said. "I thought they did a great job of limiting a lot of shots from the outside, especially in the last two periods. I saw the puck all night for the most part and when you see the puck, you're expected to stop them."

Parrish, Minnesota's captain, scored his first goal in 13 games and 17th of the season with 8:34 left in the first period by shooting Mikko Koivu's cross-crease feed inside the right goalpost for a 1-0 lead.

"We got a little lucky with the intensity we showed tonight coming down the stretch," Parish said. "We have to play a lot harder than that. We came out a little flat tonight. We're happy with the two points, but not happy with how we got them."

Minnesota doubled the margin at 7:22 of the third session as Pavol Demitra made a centering pass from behind the net to Gaborik, who netted his 24th tally by beating netminder Dwayne Roloson.

"We were talking about before the game how they were going to play tough." Gaborik said. "They are battling for jobs and they are going to work hard and they did. But we gutted it out and got two points. Not pretty, but got a big win."

Winless since February 23 at Detroit, the Oilers have been shutout three times and outscored, 34-7, in their longest drought since March 23-April 9, 1995. They have failed to score in 27 power-play opportunities during the streak.

"We had some good quality chances in the first period," Oilers coach Craig MacTavish said. "Pucks were getting behind him and dribbling through the crease. We were not getting any breaks around the net. We are struggling offensively. That (has) been well-documented."

Roloson registered 25 saves and suffered his seventh consecutive defeat for Edmonton.

"We're going to get out of this rut," Roloson said. "I know we are. We have a real young lineup right now. They're working hard and it's no fun ... but we're trying and we're just going to keep plugging away."

Acquired from the New York Islanders in the deal for Ryan Smyth on February 27th, Nilsson scored his seventh career goal in his debut with the Oilers.

"It doesn't matter if it's the first game or the 10th game, it's always nice," Nilsson said. "It's always a heck of a feeling to score and it's always a little bit special in your first game, too."