Kings score seven, hold off late rally by Wild for first win of season

ST. PAUL, Minn. -- Kevin Fiala scored his first goal for the Los Angeles Kings and had two assists in a 7-6 win against the Minnesota Wild at Xcel Energy Center on Saturday.

Fiala was traded to Los Angeles by Minnesota on June 29.
"Sometimes you feel better than other days, and today I felt pretty good from the start," Fiala said. "Obviously a little more motivated playing against them, my old team, but it was good. A good first step in our direction and myself as well, and now we just have to build from it."
Adrian Kempe had two goals and an assist, and Alex Iafallo and Gabriel Vilardi each had a goal and an assist for the Kings (1-2-0). Cal Petersen made 29 saves.
"If you'd have told us we were going to score seven goals, I'd have been jumping for joy," Los Angeles coach Todd McClellan said. "The giving up the six isn't the ideal recipe. That's a really hard game to explain. I'm not sure that we're going to give six goals up and win a game again this year. … Strange night."

Mats Zuccarello had a goal and two assists, and Kirill Kaprizov and Joel Eriksson Ek each had a goal and an assist for the Wild (0-2-0). Marc-Andre Fleury allowed four goals on 14 shots and was pulled after the first period. Filip Gustavsson made 17 saves in relief in his Minnesota debut.
"Everybody struggled, right? You get seven goals scored on, your team struggles," Minnesota coach Dean Evason said. "To pin it on one guy or one guy didn't play well from the goalie out … everybody didn't play well, or else we would have not given up seven goals."
The Wild have allowed 14 goals in their first two games; they lost 7-3 to the New York Rangers in their season opener here Thursday.
"I don't really have words," Zuccarello said. "You can't expect to win games when you let in 14 goals in two games. Sometimes we play defense like we're a [bleeping] junior team. It's the whole team. We've got to sharpen up. We can't play like that. Our mentality last year was to play good, hard defense. So far, we haven't seen that.
"I mean, we're coming down and fighting back. You've got to give it to the guys, showed some team spirit. But it's not good enough."

Fiala found Kempe with a leading pass for a shot from the right face-off circle at 4:28 of the first period to make it 1-0, and Vilardi finished a 3-on-2 rush after a turnover by Ryan Hartman to give the Kings a 2-0 lead at 8:55.
Drew Doughty scored his first goal of the season on the power play with a one-timer from the right circle to make it 3-0 at 11:13.
"Offensively, it was a really good game for us, so that was a step in the right direction for us," Kempe said. "On the other side of the puck, I think there are still some things we can improve, but you know, I think we deserved the win tonight. Even if it was 1-0 or 7-6, it doesn't matter right now. That's a huge first win. We got better in all three zones, and that was a good thing."
Jake Middleton cut it to 3-1 at 12:57 with a slap shot from inside the blue line, and Marcus Foligno made it 3-2 at 16:43.
Iafallo scored on a slap shot at 18:28 to make it 4-2.
Eriksson Ek scored on a backdoor tap-in from Kaprizov for a power-play goal at 5:25 of the second period to make it 4-3, but Fiala responded on the man-advantage at 9:11 to give Los Angeles a 5-3 lead.
Kaprizov cut it to 5-4 at 12:12 with a power-play goal over Petersen's glove, but Matt Roy scored less than a minute later at 13:10 to make it 6-4.

Zuccarello cut it 6-5 at 5:56 of the third period on a power play from the top of the left circle, and Sam Steel tied it 6-6 at 7:32 on a rebound.
Kempe answered right back 31 seconds later at 8:03 for the 7-6 final.
"Obviously we don't want to give up that many goals, but every time when they we score, we just scored right back," Fiala said. "We killed their momentum, and that was huge tonight.
"Just a good overall team win. We never gave up. We stick with it, and that's what a good team does."
NOTES: Gustavsson had an assist on Kaprizov's goal. … Doughty became the second active defenseman to score 70 power-play goals, joining Brent Burns of the Carolina Hurricanes (80). Only Rob Blake has more in Kings history (92). … With two assists, Los Angeles center Anze Kopitar passed Dave Taylor for third on its all-time scoring list with 1,070 points (365 goals, 705 assists) in 1,213 games. Kopitar trails Marcel Dionne (1,307) and Luc Robitaille (1,154).