EDMONTON, Alberta _ The Minnesota Wild contained almost everyone in the Edmonton Oilers lineup except the one player the team had to be most cautious of when he was on the ice.
Connor McDavid had a hand in most of Edmonton's offense, as the NHL's reigning MVP lifted the Oilers to a 4-1 win over the Wild Saturday at Rogers Place that spoiled goalie Devan Dubnyk's bid at 200 wins in the city that gave him his start in the NHL.
This setback also sabotaged the Wild's chance at sweeping the week; instead, the team returns home after a 1-1 showing in a back-to-back on the road after upending the Canucks 5-2 Friday in Vancouver.
McDavid stirred the Oilers out of their slumber with two second-period goals.
On the first, he scooped up a loose puck in the neutral zone, scooted around defenseman Ryan Suter and beelined for the net where his initial shot was stopped. But like it tends to do with superstars, the puck found McDavid again and he directed it into a mostly empty net 9 minutes, 11 seconds into the frame with Dubnyk off to the side after the initial save.
At 12 minutes, McDavid added an insurance goal on the power play _ wiring a wrist shot through traffic for his 33rd goal.
The Oilers were much more energized after those goals _ a stark contrast to the way the team started, as it looked like it was sleepwalking through the first. That period didn't flatter the Wild much more, with the group skating like a team finishing off two games in two nights with travel.
But the Wild still had the puck more often, racking up an early shot advantage. At one point, its edge was 11-2. The Oilers didn't their first shot on Dubnyk until more than five minutes had elapsed in the period. This barometer, however, was somewhat deceptive.
Few of those looks actually registered as quality chances, and the Wild churned little momentum out of the minutes it logged in Edmonton's end.
Still, not being able to squeeze any offense out of those shots on the Oilers' Cam Talbot was costly.
The Wild finally erased Talbot's shutout bid in the third.
Winger Tyler Ennis set up winger Charlie Coyle at 9:44, the third straight game that line (which also features center Matt Cullen) has contributed. Overall, the unit has nine points in its last three games.
But that's as close as the Wild would get, with Talbot steady the rest of the way to pick up 32 stops.
Center Leon Draisaitl added a third on the power play when he kept the shot on a three-on-one rush with 3:35 to go. Fellow center Ryan Nugent-Hopkins scored an empty-netter 1:02 later, a shot that was assisted by McDavid to cap off his three-point night. He has 84 on the season, the third-most in the league.
Edmonton finished 2-for-2 with the man advantage; the Wild was 0-for-3.
At the other end, Dubnyk made 24 saves _ just his second loss against the Oilers, as he entered the game 8-1 with a .948 save percentage and 1.31 goals-against average.
A win would have nabbed Dubnyk that milestone win against the Oilers, who drafted him 14th overall in 2004 and tabbed him for 171 games before trading him to the Predators in 2014.
