Wild continues its climb with 5-2 victory over Edmonton

EDMONTON, ALBERTA – The Wild — repeat, the Wild! — has the best points percentage in the NHL.

The Wild's 5-2 victory over the Edmonton Oilers, coupled with the Washington Capitals losing to the Islanders in Brooklyn on Tuesday night, gave the Wild a league-best .724 points percentage and provided the Western Conference leaders with 71 points in 49 games — one shy of the Capitals for most in the NHL.

Even with All-Star goalie Devan Dubnyk getting the game off, Darcy Kuemper made 41 saves to tie a career high, and the West leaders with 33 wins and 163 goals scored five more times to chase its ninth goaltender from the net this season.

What's more, fourth-line center Tyler Graovac picked up his first two-goal game and first goal streak of his career and fourth-line left wing Chris Stewart scored his 11th goal.

"Same story. Contributions from all the lines," said Zach Parise, who stopped a 10-game goal drought with the winning goal. "That's been the key to us winning and our success. You get three goals, I guess, from your so-called fourth line, that makes a big difference."

The Wild extended its franchise-record road point streak to 14 games (12-0-2). The Wild, which followed a 12-win December with a 10-win January, hasn't lost in regulation on the road since Nov. 29. It has averaged 4.1 goals per game (90 goals) in the past 22 games overall.

Jason Zucker scored a goal and assisted on Stewart's third-period goal. Zucker, who has nine goals and 18 points in the past 18 games, was plus-3 and now leads the NHL with a plus-30. Zucker's assist to Stewart was actually quite funny.

After the Wild killed off Kuemper's delay of game penalty, Zucker hit Stewart coming out of the box. Instead of streaking in on a breakaway, Stewart hit the brakes from the blue line and used a streaking Zucker to the net as a decoy before whipping a shot past backup Laurent Brossoit, who replaced red-hot Cam Talbot after he gave up his fourth goal on 19 shots.

"We both knew that was coming from the time he got the puck," Zucker said of Stewart.

So he didn't expect a pass?

"Not a chance," Zucker said, laughing.

Stewart said, "I felt bad. I kind of slowed up and let him get all the way up in the play and just kind of looked him off there."

Afterward, Zucker was hysterically laughing. Said Stewart, "I tried to keep a straight face there, but he made me laugh, so I couldn't hold it in."

Kuemper also got his first career assist on the goal. That meant Kuemper actually outscored NHL leading scorer Connor McDavid in the Wild's three victories against Edmonton this season.

Kuemper said his teammates made it easy Tuesday, but Kuemper was dialed in early and settled things down when the Wild needed it, coach Bruce Boudreau said.

The Wild's forecheck, especially in a two-goal first period that ended with Zucker's goal with 3.6 seconds left, was exceptional.

In the second, Parise made it 3-0, but not long after Adam Larsson cut the deficit to 3-1, Mikael Granlund batted an exit pass out of the air for an Oilers turnover.

Graovac then finished a beautiful give-and-go with Granlund for his second goal of the game and third in two games. It was a huge goal at the time, and Granlund extended his point streak to 10 games, matching the franchise record held by Erik Haula and Andrew Brunette.

It was the Wild's eighth consecutive victory in Edmonton. The Oilers hadn't lost in regulation in eight games. The Wild improved to 13-3-1 in its past 17 meetings against the Oilers.

The Wild is 22-3-1 since an overtime win in Edmonton on Dec. 4.

"We wanted to start this road trip off on the right foot here," Stewart said. "Four big games, this was a hot team, so it was a good test and we answered the bell."