FINAL – Kings 3, Wild 6 – Danault, McLellan

The LA Kings began a three-game road trip with a 6-3 defeat this afternoon in Minnesota, with six unanswered Wild goals following an early 3-0 lead.

The Kings got first-period tallies from Rasmus Kupari, Carl Grundstrom and Adrian Kempe, while Cal Petersen took the loss with 27 saves in net.

The Kings surged out early, with goals at even strength, on the penalty kill and on the power play to open up an early three-goal advantage.

First, less than two minutes in, Kupari took an area pass from Trevor Moore and scored on the breakaway with a shorthanded goal to put the visitors on the board. The Kings followed up with an even-strength goal, courtesy of Grundstrom on the backhand, to double their advantage shy of the halfway mark of the opening period. A power-play tally from Kempe, 10:17 into the game, pushed the lead to three, the 32nd goal of the season for Kempe and his fourth over his last four games.

Minnesota scored twice in a span of 50 seconds late in the opening period to turn a 3-0 Kings lead into a 3-2 score at the intermission. First, on the power play, Kirill Kaprizov’s centering feed deflected off of Olli Maatta’s stick and in, getting the hosts on the board. Less than a minute later, forward Matt Boldy buried a one-timer from the left-hand circle to bring the Wild within a goal.

After the high-scoring first period, Minnesota opened the scoring in the middle stanza less than two minutes in, through defenseman Jared Spurgeon. Off of a turnover in the defensive zone, Spurgeon picked off a clearing attempt, moved in 2-on-1 and beat Petersen on the backhand, tying the game at three.

Just shy of the midway mark in the game, Minnesota took its first lead of the day, as Mats Zuccarello buried his second effort, immediately off of an offensive-zone faceoff, to put the Wild ahead 4-3. Forward Marcus Foligno pushed the lead to 5-3 late in the second period, as he redirected a point shot from defenseman Jordie Benn to give the hosts a two-goal advantage at the second intermission.

The Wild added an insurance goal early in the third period to open up a three-goal advantage. Defenseman Jacob Middleton walked in from the left point and rang his shot off the far post, with the rebound falling to Bjugstad, who whacked it home for his sixth of the season and his team’s sixth of the game.

Hear from forward Phillip Danault and head coach Todd McLellan following the defeat.

Phillip Danault

Danault talks with the media following the loss in Minnesota #GoKingsGo | @LAKings pic.twitter.com/CvmKteLxpk

— Bally Sports West (@BallySportWest) April 10, 2022

Todd McLellan

On the areas of the game that the Kings try to focus on when things start to snowball
[Structure and leadership], but our identity, we’ve talked a lot about that over the last month and a half, ever since we ran into this injury rash. Our identity and our structure are supposed to take care of us, but it’s not right now. We’re supposed to be a team that checks well and defends, we didn’t do that tonight, to a man.

On reinforcing calmness to players who haven’t played in a game like that before
Young and old, it’s not just the kids. They are obviously experiencing something like that for the first time, the older players have been around, but you go back to simplicity, basics, preventing outnumbered rushes, being good around your net, winning faceoffs. All of those areas we gave up a goal tonight. You score a power-play goal, you score a shorthanded goal, you get a 3-0 lead on the road, there’s no reason why you’re not in it at the end of the night and we weren’t. Really disappointing.

On the goals conceded and their impact on the game
We shoot the first one in our own net, but we can recover from that. We had a real good early penalty kill, didn’t want to be shorthanded a minute into the game, but it worked out for us, we got the shortie. The penalty kill was going well and we shot it in our own net. It’s the second one that really hurt. Miscommunication, net front, two D on the same player and not widening out and a hell of a shot. I thought the turnover on the third [goal], I think Toby turned it over, that’s the one that really hurt, because we can settle things down, we just had a break and that third one hurt. Fourth one off the faceoff, again coverages, forwards going out to the point and it was Toby again that needed to step up and he didn’t get it done. Those hurt and we didn’t recover from it.

On Blake Lizotte’s return tonight
I thought, out of all the guys we brought back into the lineup, it’s three now, Edler came back in and wound up going back out, but of the three that were in the lineup, I thought he probably did the best job of coming back in, but he’s had the shortest term of [injured] time. He’s a pretty trusting player, we protected him a little on the penalty kill early in the game, I think he had 10, 11 minutes. I thought he’s done a real good job, seems to be getting better as time goes on as well.

On the shorthanded goal, both tonight and over the last stretch of games
Well, they should be big, as I mentioned earlier, you score a shortie to start with and you get one on the power play five seconds in, probably not a lot of games that teams are losing in the National Hockey League when that happens. But, when you don’t check well, you don’t breakout well, when you’re not good around your net, when your details erode, a team like Minnesota and some of the other upper-echelon teams can punish you and they did that.

On if he is hopeful to have Alex Edler back against Chicago on Tuesday
We’re sure hoping so. We’ve got eight games left. We’ll do anything to get anybody healthy, it’s as simple as that. I can keep answering these injury questions, when will guys be back, when you see them on the ice, that’s when they’re going to be back. I can’t rush it by answering questions, the trainers can’t rush it, it’s just mother nature dictates the healing process. When they’re ready, they’re ready, but when they’re ready physically, they’re not always ready to play, but we’re running out of time.

*Todd McLellan confirmed after the game that Arthur Kaliyev was not out of the lineup tonight due to injury.

Notes –

– The Kings scored shorthanded tonight for the fifth time in their last 10 games played. Forward Trevor Moore leads all players in the NHL with five shorthanded goals and six shorthanded points.
– Forward Rasmus Kupari scored his first career shorthanded goal tonight and his fifth goal of the season.
– Forward Adrian Kempe scored his team-leading 32nd goal of the season in the first period. Kempe has four goals over his last four games.
– The Kings have scored a power-play goal in seven of their last ten games.
– The Kings conceded six consecutive goals for the third time this season (2/28 vs. BOS, 10/23 @ STL).

The Kings are scheduled to skate tomorrow morning for practice in Chicago, at 11 AM local time.