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Wild get three power-play goals in win over Oilers

Nov 6, 2007 - 4:51 AM ST. PAUL, Minnesota (Ticker) -- The Minnesota Wild entered Monday's contest against the Edmonton Oilers with the sixth worst power-play unit in the league and without arguably their two best forwards. That didn't matter.

Mark Parrish scored two power-play goals and the Wild converted on 4-of-10 opportunities with an extra skater - including three in the first period - to top the Oilers, 5-2, for their second straight victory.

With Marian Gaborik and Pavol Demitra nursing groin injuries, Pierre-Marc Bouchard and Kurtis Foster picked up the slack with a goal and an assist apiece for Minnesota and goaltender Niklas Backstrom made 22 saves to improve to 6-0-0 in his career against Edmonton.

"When you are missing guys like that, its not that one or two guys have to step up - everybody has to step up," Parrish said. "We have to play as strong a game as we possibly can. I think top to bottom from Backstrom making big saves when we needed them to timely scoring on the power play and some pretty big kills, we really hauled off everything we needed to do tonight."

The Wild took the lead for good early in this one, with Parrish putting home the first of the three first period power-play goals at 4:55 on a laser cross-ice pass from Petteri Nummelin with Mikko Koivu also registering an assist. Nummelin, a defenseman, was playing forward to help fill in the holes left by Gaborik and Demitra with assists on both of Parrish's goals.

Nummelin said he didn't really know where to go several times on the ice, but made a perfect pass to get the scoring going.

"Everybody in the building knew where the puck was going but our offside defenseman," Edmonton coach Craig MacTavish said.

Bouchard scored his goal at 18:57 and Foster put home a one-timer 11 seconds later to make the score 3-0 and tie a franchise record with three power-play tallies in a period. It was enough to convince MacTavish to lift former Wild goaltender Dwayne Roloson from net to start the second frame.

But Minnesota treated Mathieu Garon just as rudely, with Parrish scoring the Wild's fourth power-play goal at 3:21 of the second period.

"You can commend the effort and the intensity, but you've got to play this game with your head or you'll get picked apart," MacTavish said. "We're running around the ice like a bunch of chickens with our heads off trying to extract a pound of vengeance. We're out of position and they picked us apart."

Backstrom had his bid for a fourth career shutout against Edmonton spoiled at 5:18 of the second, when Dustin Penner scored on assists from Ales Hemsky and Jarret Stoll. Backstrom entered with a 0.40 goals-against average and .982 save percentage against the Oilers.

The teams then traded even-strength goals, with Stephane Veilleux giving Minnesota a 5-1 lead at 14:59 and Shawn Horcoff cutting the deficit back to three 25 seconds later.

The Wild fell one power-play goal short of tying its single-game franchise record, but did improve its power play percentage from 14 to 19 percent. Edmonton, which entered the game dead last with a 5.6 percent power play conversion rate, went 1-for-6 with an extra skater.

"We moved the puck really well," Minnesota coach Jacques Lemaire said. "(Nummelin) started the whole thing with that pass across, that nice goal. A lot of times I talk about confidence when you're doing certain things, it seemed like we had that confidence. We were moving the puck quick. They tried to pressure the puck carrier as much as they could and the puck was gone quick - passes on the stick - that's why we did well."

The Oilers gave the Wild plenty of opportunities, tying a season high with 10 penalties. It also didn't help that Edmonton was without three veteran defensemen - Matt Greene, Joni Pitkanen and Mathieu Roy - because of injuries, forcing MacTavish to get creative with his penalty kill unit.

"We take pride on our penalty kill, so that hurts," defenseman Steve Staios said. "That stings. We don't like to see that. We got ourselves behind early and we were just reeling. It was one (penalty) after another. We couldn't regroup."

The Oilers lost for the fourth straight time at Xcel Energy Center and fell to 1-6 against Northwest Division opponents this season. Edmonton has lost seven of its last eight games against the Wild, but did break a three-game scoreless drought in St. Paul. The Oilers had scored just three goals in their previous five games in Minnesota.

Koivu notched three assists for the Wild to give him a team-leading 10 this season.