Only for Guild Members » McDavid gave the Oilers a 2-0 lead

ST. PAUL Adidas Jimmy Hayes Jersey , Minn. (AP) After working a quarter-century in the NHL, including two decades in management, Paul Fenton finally has the opportunity to run a team.The new general manager of the Minnesota Wild has been tasked with retooling a roster that has produced a consistent regular season winner but, more importantly, scant success in the playoffs.”I’m confident we have a very good team in Minnesota and believe Paul shares that same belief. The goal remains to bring a Stanley Cup to the state of hockey,” owner Craig Leipold said. ”No pressure, Paul, but that is where it starts.”The 58-year-old Fenton was introduced on Tuesday at Xcel Energy Center, where the Wild have reached the postseason six straight times to match the longest streak in the Western Conference with the Anaheim Ducks. The problem is they’ve won only two series during that run, both in the first round. That’s why Leipold dismissed Chuck Fletcher after nine seasons and, after a month of interviewing and considering candidates, turned to Fenton for a fresh perspective .”As we went through the process, we kept hearing good things about our team,” Leipold said. ”We kept feeling better and better Adidas Derek Grant Jersey , and it really reinforced what we thought. This is not a rebuild. It’s a tweaking.”Existing contracts essentially make a teardown impossible. Center Mikko Koivu, left wing Zach Parise and defenseman Ryan Suter accounted for almost 30 percent of the Wild’s salary cap in 2017-18. Koivu’s two-year extension kicks in this summer. Parise and Suter are signed for seven more seasons. All three players attended the news conference, as did coach Bruce Boudreau and several holdover hockey operations staffers.”It obviously doesn’t need to be overhauled,” Fenton said. ”We have a lot of really good veteran pieces, young guys that are coming, and I’m just looking forward to trying to put on some finishing touches to help us win.”Even without no-trade clauses, the Koivu-Parise-Suter core would be difficult to move with their current deals. There are plenty of other valuable players that Fenton could use as assets in trades, though, and there’s precedent for him doing just that.During his 12-year tenure as assistant general manager of the Nashville Predators, Fenton teamed with general manager David Poile to pull off several bold moves. They shipped Shea Weber to the Montreal Canadiens for P.K. Subban in a swap of standout defensemen two summers ago after sending defenseman Seth Jones to the Columbus Blue Jackets for center Ryan Johansen about six months earlier, deals that set the stage for the Predators to reach the Stanley Cup finals in 2017. They had the best record in the league in the 2017-18 regular season.Fenton declined to make any evaluations or proclamations about the Wild during his session with reporters, but he did give a definitive answer to a question about whether he’d keep the aggressive approach to trading.”I like to think outside the box,” he said, later adding: ”I’ll look at small trades. I’ll look at big trades. Whatever is going to improve this organization going forward to give us a chance to win the Stanley Cup Adidas Jack Johnson Jersey , we’re going to look.”As for feeling limited by the Koivu-Parise-Suter contract situation he inherited, well, if he was daunted by it he wouldn’t have been hired.”Everybody has the same problem,” Fenton said. ”We’re all cap driven.”Fenton was accompanied by his wife, Nona, who was once his high school sweetheart in Massachusetts, and his two adult sons, P.J. and Owen, and daughter-in-law Stefanie. There’s a granddaughter in the family as well.Suter was a familiar face to Fenton in the crowd, too. The Predators drafted him in the first round in 2003 while Fenton was director of player personnel. Leipold owned the Predators then, too.”We have mutual friends that say good things about each other, so I don’t think it’s going to be a difficult transition at all,” said Boudreau, who will enter his third season with the Wild. ”We’re hockey guys Adidas Erik Karlsson Jersey , and when we’re getting together we’re going to be talking hockey all the time. That’s what we love to do. He spent a lot of years looking at the minors. I’ve been a lot of years in the minors. I think it should end up being a really good relationship.”— OTTAWA, Ontario (AP) In five previous games against the Senators, Connor McDavid had yet to score a goal. He more than made up for it on Thursday night.McDavid had two goals and two assists, and the Edmonton Oilers eliminated Ottawa from playoff contention with a 6-2 win on Thursday night.”He just took the game over,” Ottawa coach Guy Boucher said.Oilers coach Todd McLellan admitted he’s beginning to run out of accolades for McDavid.”He’s just a remarkable athlete,” McLellan said. ”Especially the way they responded after getting scored on, that was important. It was great leadership and we talked a lot about this pushback, response shifts and he and their line did a tremendous job of doing that. He’s just got so much pace to his game, change of speed, deception, it’s tough to defend.”Drake Caggiula also had two goals for the Oilers, with Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Ty Rattie adding the others. Cam Talbot stopped 33 shots as Edmonton concluded a four-game trip 3-1-0.Matt Duchene and Filip Chlapik replied for Ottawa, while Craig Anderson made 32 saves.Trailing 2-0 to start the third, the Senators made it a one-goal game on Duchene’s power-play tally. But the Oilers responded with a goal eight seconds later by Nugent-Hopkins following a great pass from McDavid.Edmonton then made it 4-1 on yet another stellar play by McDavid Adidas Patrick Maroon Jersey , who set up Rattie for his third of the season. Caggiula scored his second of the night at 6:34, also on the power play.”I thought we had some guys who did a really good job on (McDavid) early and he had the one goal where he found some open ice, but other than that I thought we kept him in check,” Duchene said. ”It just shows you that if you give a guy like that a little bit of room, he can make you pay.”Ottawa made it 5-2 as Chlapik scored his first NHL goal, tipping a shot by Marian Gaborik. Bobby Ryan picked up his 500th career point with the second assist.McDavid scored his second of the night and 36th of the season late in the contest as he walked around Mike Hoffman.McDavid gave the Oilers a 2-0 lead five minutes into the second when he took a pass from Nugent-Hopkins in the slot and beat Anderson high.Edmonton opened the scoring midway through the first as Caggiula found a loose puck in the crease and knocked it in for his 11th of the season.NOTES: Ryan Dzingel returned to Senators’ lineup following a one-game absence after taking a puck to the back of the head last Saturday. … D Christian Wolanin made his NHL debut with the Senators. Wolanin signed with Ottawa on Wednesday after three seasons at the University of North Dakota. His father, Craig, played 695 NHL games and won a Stanley Cup with the Colorado Avalanche. … G Filip Gustavsson, acquired by Ottawa from Pittsburgh in the Derick Brassard trade, arrived Thursday and met with reporters for the first time. The Swedish prospect, who had been playing in his native country, will join the AHL’s Belleville Senators on Friday. ”I like playing on the small ice,” Gustavsson said. ”There’s a bit more speed and I’m looking forward to it.” … The Senators were without captain Erik Karlsson (personal reasons) and forward Mark Stone (leg). Edmonton forward Mike Cammalleri was a healthy scratch.UP NEXTOilers: Host Los Angeles on Saturday night.Senators: Host Carolina on Saturday night.—