EDMONTON, Alberta _ With the Minnesota Wild in the midst of a weirdly scheduled five-game, 12-day trip with two days off before three of the games, the Wild has had to bide time on the road by eating out ... a lot, twiddling thumbs and staring at hotel room ceilings.
"It feels like we've been on the road a month," cracked Zach Parise.
Sunday night, the team at least got to play a hockey game in one of its favorite cities. The game wasn't played inside one of its favorite arenas though.
The Edmonton Oilers moved into the sparkling new, very impressive Rogers Place before the season, closing up the old, dark Rexall Place that the Wild had grown to love with 11 victories in its final 12 visits.
The Wild's mojo didn't exactly carry over to the downtown rink, but it was able to rally from an early deficit and take a 2-1 victory after Mikko Koivu's fifth career overtime goal.
He scored on a pretty deke and backhander after Charlie Coyle set him up. It was the third overtime in four games on the 1-1-2 trip that ends Wednesday in Toronto. A loss would have moved the Wild outside the top-8 in the West.
The Wild is 6-6-3 in its past 15 games.
In a game where Nino Niederreiter was reunited on the top line with Eric Staal and Coyle, Niederreiter set up Coyle for a tying goal early.
Former Oiler Devan Dubnyk, beaten less than three minutes in by Patrick Maroon, was terrific and made 28 saves.
Since joining the Wild, Dubnyk had been 3-1 against the Oilers with a 1.51 goals-against average and was 2-0 in Edmonton with a 0.50 goals-against average and .974 save percentage.
The Wild held the Western Conference's highest-scoring team and the NHL's leading scorer, Connor McDavid, in check. McDavid was held to three shots, although he missed the final 8:14 of the second period being checked for a concussion.
With the Wild looking lifeless and disinterested and unbelievably soft and sloppy in its own zone, the Wild finally got a shot to end a nearly 10-minute drought for an offensive-zone draw.
That's when Zack Kassian decided to drop the gloves with Kurtis Gabriel off the faceoff. With the minor-league call-up, playing for the second time in as many games, obviously looking to spark his lethargic team, that's not typically a time a home-team player should accept an invitation to fight with a 1-0 lead.
Nevertheless, Kassian fought, and it worked perfectly for the Wild because the score was tied 40 seconds later.
Parise was plugged into Gabriel's spot on the ensuing faceoff, and on the next shift, Niederreiter took Parise's spot. Niederreiter put forth a strong forecheck, then took Staal's pass, was denied on a shot but gobbled up the rebound and quickly set up Coyle for his team-leading ninth goal in the period's final minute.
It allowed the Wild to fortunately escape a poorly played period in a tie.
The Wild looked much stronger in the second period than it did in the second, but it was unable to beat backup goalie Jonas Gustavsson. Playing for No. 1 Cam Talbot because he played the night before against Anaheim, Gustavsson was playing on his fifth game of this season.
The Wild's two best chances were by Parise, but he hit the post once and was denied on a breakaway the other time.
The Wild also lucked out because the Oilers drew consecutive power plays without McDavid in the game to take part. That's because McDavid was pulled from the game by the NHL as part of the new concussion protocol when his chin hit the ice after being tripped by Jared Spurgeon.
Then, with nine seconds left in the power play, Nate Prosser took a delay-of-game penalty. The Wild's penalty kill, which has been leaky for a month, only surrendered one shot on the two disadvantages.
