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Minnesota’s Jaime Sifers, left, sends Edmonton’s Fernando Pisani to the ice with a check on Tuesday. (Jim Mone/Associated Press)

Chuck Kobasew scored the go-ahead goal early in the third period and the Minnesota Wild beat the Edmonton Oilers for the 13th straight time at home, 4-2 on Tuesday night.

Andrew Ebbett, Antti Miettinen and Martin Havlat also scored for the Wild, winners of three straight overall.

Marc Pouliot and Ryan Potulny scored for the last-place Oilers, who finished a four-game road trip without a win.

The Wild’s home winning streak over Edmonton is tied for the longest home winning streak against an opponent in the NHL, according to the Elias Sports Bureau.

Minnesota, which entered the night eight points behind Detroit for the eighth and final playoff spot in the Western Conference with 11 games remaining, has won three straight for the first time since Jan. 23-28.

The Wild have played well recently despite several key players missing games with injuries. Starting goalie Niklas Backstrom and defenceman Brent Burns are out. Also missing is role player Shane Hnidy and enforcer Derek Boogaard.

Toronto goalie Jonas Gustavsson came up huge for the Leafs on Tuesday. (Sean Kilpatrick/Canadian Press)

The visiting Toronto Maple Leafs kept their provincial rivals in a post-Olympic funk on Tuesday, taking down the Ottawa Senators 4-1 at Scotiabank Place.

Phil Kessel scored in the first period, with John Mitchell and Mikhail Grabovski adding to the tally for the Leafs in the second.

Andy Sutton answered with a goal late in the second for the Senators, who have gone 1-5-1 since the Olympics finished.

Rickard Wallin added an empty-netter for Toronto with a small under two minutes left in the game.

Toronto has won five of its last seven games, and went 4-0-0 in the last four meetings between the heated Ontario rivals this season.

Goalie Jonas Gustavsson was terrific for the Leafs in only his fifth start in the last 14 games. He bailed out the Toronto defence as it was guilty of turning the puck over all night, and made 30 stops overall.

The Leafs’ hot top line got things going in the first period, as Kessel, Nikolai Kulemin, and Tyler Bozak linked up again for the opening goal.

This one came on a textbook three-on-two rush. Kessel was trailing and took a pass in the high slot from Kulemin as Bozak drove the net, and fired it through the defender’s legs and over goalie Brian Elliot’s left shoulder for his 26th goal of the season.

It was Kessel’s sixth goal in his last five games against the Sens.

But Kessel nearly gave the goal right back a few minutes later. He was caught stickhandling into the Leaf crease and made a nice drop pass — to Ottawa’s Chris Kelly.

Surprise gift

Kelly was so surprised by the gift that he didn’t get a excellent shot away, and on the rebound Jason Spezza fired it over the net.

Dion Phaneuf was also in the giving mood, handing the puck right to Alex Kovalev in the Toronto zone in the final minutes of the frame, but the Russian sniper was stopped by Jonas Gustavsson. The Leaf netminder faced nine shots as Ottawa came on late in the period, and turned away each one.

The Leafs killed off two Senators power plays in the first four minutes of the second, and then broke the game open shortly after with two goals in 19 seconds on their first two shots of the period.

Mitchell netted the first when he dodged a huge hip check from Sens defender Andy Sutton and fired a shot over Elliot’s glove at 4:33.

Grabovski made it 3-0 at 4:52, capitalizing on a excellent forecheck with Luca Caputi and Viktor Stalberg to chip in his ninth of the season.

Gustavsson remained sharp in net for Toronto as the Leafs continued to turn the puck over in perilous positions, stopping Milan Michalek and Chris Neil in close, but Sutton finally broke through at 18:26.

Ottawa caught the Leafs scrambling and Sens captain Daniel Alfredsson did excellent work shielding the puck from several checkers, and slid it over to Sutton who scored his fifth of the season.

But the Sens couldn’t build on the momentum in a chippy third period.

The Senators’ best chance to close the gap came when Michalek had another breakaway at the nine-minute mark, but Gustavsson stopped him again.

Five roughing minors were called between the two teams in the frame, to go along with the two roughing calls and two fighting majors that came in the first period.

Sergei Kostitsyn snapped a third-period tie with a deflected goal and the Montreal Canadiens stretched their winning streak to six with a 3-1 victory over the New York Rangers on Tuesday night in the 600th meeting between the Original Six rivals.

Kostitsyn nudged the puck in front and was rewarded when it caromed in off the skate of Rangers forward Artem Anisimov at 5:59. Frustrated goalie Henrik Lundqvist bent over backward and stared at the ceiling in disgust.

Montreal’s winning streak is its longest since an eight-game spurt in 2006. The Canadiens built their playoff cushion over the ninth-place Rangers to seven points. New York dropped three points behind Boston in the Eastern Conference.

Glen Metropolit staked the Canadiens to a 1-0 lead in the first with a power-play goal. Sean Avery made it 1-1 in the second for New York, which was outshot 35-20.

Jaroslav Halak has been in goal for each victory in the Canadiens’ streak. Tomas Plekanec’s empty net, small-handed goal with 35.5 seconds left sealed the win.

Lundqvist was tested heavily after needing to make only 17 saves in a 3-1 win over Philadelphia on Sunday. The Rangers will face St. Louis at home Thursday and then play eight of their final 11 on the road.

Avery tied it 2:02 into the second on New York’s first shot of the period and seventh of the game. He got credit for the goal when defenceman Matt Gilroy’s shot from the right point hit him while Avery was being knocked to the ice by hulking defenceman Hal Gill.

It was Avery’s 11th goal of the season and third in two games. Avery scored twice Sunday in his return to the lineup.

Montreal used its NHL-best road power play to take a 1-0 lead. While Brandon Prust was off for holding, former Rangers centre Scott Gomez cleanly won a faceoff against Chris Drury and got the puck to Andrei Markov in the slot. Markov’s drive clipped Metropolit and went past the surprised Lundqvist at 3:34 for his 16th this season and 10th on the power play.

The Canadiens finished the pedestrian first period with a 9-6 shots advantage. The game played out much differently than the teams’ previous two meetings — a 6-0 Canadiens win in Montreal on Jan. 23 and New York’s 6-2 home victory six days earlier.

Metropolit nearly netted another goal in the second, but his hard drive was deflected at the last moment by Lundqvist’s quick glove. A later drive by Markov was deflected off the crossbar behind the Rangers goalie and into the protective netting out of play.

Despite getting even, the Rangers recorded only five shots on Halak in the middle frame. Montreal posted 18, but couldn’t get a puck past Lundqvist.