First goal of the season for Anze Kopitar, who scored 2:19 into overtime to give the Los Angeles Kings their first victory of the season, 2-1 against the Minnesota Wild at Staples Center on Friday.
After Kings goaltender Jonathan Quick made glove saves on Thomas Vanek and Mathew Dumba in the 3-on-3, Kopitar took a pass from Tanner Pearson and snapped a shot from the slot past Wild goalie Darcy Kuemper.
The Kings (1-3-0) dominated the first two periods, outshooting the Wild 32-14. But they managed one goal, by Tyler Toffoli on a power play early in the second period. The Wild tied the game on Mikko Koivu’s power-play goal at 5:37 of the third.
Kuemper, making his first start of the season after Devan Dubnyk played the first three games, made 35 saves.
Jonathan Quick, who has started all four games for the Kings, made 25 saves.
The loss was the first in four games for the Wild, who were coming off a 4-3 victory at the Arizona Coyotes on Thursday. Minnesota completes a three-game road trip at the Anaheim Ducks on Sunday.
The Kings outshot the Wild 16-5 in the first period but were unable to beat Kuemper, who made saves on Dustin Brown and Kopitar. The 16 shots were one more than Los Angeles had in all of a 3-0 home loss to the Vancouver Canucks on Tuesday.
A tripping penalty to Wild defenseman Marco Scandella at 19:24 gave the Kings a power play that carried over into the second period, and they ended an 0-for-13 drought from the start of the season at 1:13 when Toffoli took a pass from Milan Lucic and snapped a shot over Kuemper’s left shoulder for his second goal of the season.
Minnesota began to generate some offense in the third period and tied the game when Koivu shoveled the rebound of Zach Parise’s shot from the right circle past Quick with Kings forward Nick Shore in the penalty box for tripping.
Defenseman Derek Forbort, a Minnesota native and the 15th player taken in the 2010 NHL Draft, made his NHL debut for the Kings, the final player from that first round to do so. He had one shot in 11:33 of ice time.
Go Kings, go!
2 Comments
Bravo Kopitar!
Kopitar has finally came out of his shell. Have a good game tonight!