The Kings finished off their two-game Central Division road trip on Thursday night, defeating the Minnesota Wild 7-3. In typical Kings versus Wild fashion, the unpredictable ensued when the two teams faced off. Just over one year after a memorable 7-6 victory for the Kings in Minnesota, the away team again put up a touchdown in the State of Hockey.
The first period was by far the most eventful period of the Kings’ season thus far. With six goals in the first 20 minutes, the Kings doubled up the Wild on the scoresheet. Scoring began 2:39 into the game with a Carl Grundstrom wrist shot from the right side of the slot that beat Marc-Andre Fleury short-side. The Wild tied the game shortly after when a dump-in attempt ricocheted into the slot onto Connor Dewar’s stick. Dewar took advantage of the fortuitous bounce and scored. Then, the always threatening Kirill Kaprisov gave the Wild their only lead of the game 8:00 into the game with a net-front deflection, putting the Wild up 2-1. Despite the deficit, the Kings took control of the game from that point on, scoring three goals in the final five minutes of the period. Vladislav Gavrikov evened the score 2-2 off of a set-play from a face-off. The rest of the period belonged to Pierre-Luc Dubois, who netted both Kings goals in the final minute of the first. Dubois’ goals came just 12 seconds apart, marking the third-fastest two goals scored by a single player in franchise history.
A quiet second period followed, seeing no goals on either end. The Wild outshot the Kings 14-11 in the period.
The offense picked back up in the third period when the Kings pushed the lead to three goals. Like Dubois, Trevor Moore netted his third goal of the road trip with a beautiful in-tight move. The goal for Moore extended his goal streak to three games and gives him a team-high four goals on the season. A Wild goal with 5:22 remaining in the game brought the home team back within striking distance, but two empty net goals by Adrian Kempe and Blake Lizotte shorthanded sealed the victory. Each goal for the duo is their first of the season.
Cam Talbot made his second consecutive start for the Kings and improved his record to 2-1-0. Talbot stopped 29 of 32 shots to beat his former team.
