The Minnesota Wild and Los Angeles Kings met for the first time of the season on Monday night, October 13, at the Grand Casino Arena in St. Paul, Minnesota. This is the first of three meetings, with the next two taking place in Los Angeles in January. The Wild made some roster changes following their loss to the Columbus Blue Jackets on Saturday, October 11. They removed Hunter High from the lineup and brought in Danila Yurov for his NHL debut. The Kings are also coming off Saturday’s loss. They lost 3-2 on the road to the Winnipeg Jets.
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Jesper Wallstedt scored for the Wild for the first time of the season, while former Wild goaltender Darcy Kuemper scored for the Kings. The Wild are still without Mats Zuccarello and Nico Sturm, while Corey Perry and Kyle Burroughs are without the Kings. The Wild took the lead early in the game and the Kings tried to fight back and tie the game. After overtime and penalty kicks, they won 4-3. That leaves the Wild at 2-1-0 and the Kings at 1-2-1.
game review
Both teams have made greater progress after experiencing several games. The Wild scored first on a power-play goal from captain Jared Spurgeon to take a 1-0 lead. He was assisted by Marcus Johnson and Marco Rossi. That was just the beginning of the Wild’s scoring as they added two more points on the power play before the quarter ended.
Kirill Kaprizov scored the first goal, with assists from Zev Buim and Vladimir Tarasenko, 2-0. Matt Boldy scored his second goal 20 seconds later, making it 3-0 with assists from Tarasenko and Joel Eriksson Ek. It was the only goal of the period and the Wild took the lead heading into the second period.
Both sides had several chances in the second half, but the goalkeeper was too high and no goals were scored. The Wild led 3-0 entering the final quarter. The Kings got on the scoreboard minutes into the third period on a goal from Kevin Fiala. He made it 3-1 with assists from Joel Armia and Brandt Clark.
Soon after, the Kings scored on the power play with a goal from Quinton Byfield. He made it 3-2 with assists from Adrian Kempe and Anze Kopitar. Kempe scored in a six-on-five match late in the quarter, tying the score at 3-3. He was assisted by Byfield and Drew Doughty. That would be the final goal of the quarter and they went into overtime. That wasn’t enough, so a penalty shootout was required, making it 4-3 Wild. Rossi was the only player to score in the penalty shootout between the two teams.
The Wild won’t have much time to think about that… as they face the Dallas Stars in the second half of a back-to-back on Tuesday, October 14th. The Kings, on the other hand, are days away from their next game, which will be at home against the Pittsburgh Penguins on Thursday, October 16.
