Wild Fall to Kings in OT

They can build on that initial victory by continuing their success over the visiting Colorado Avalanche on Sunday night.

The Avalanche are 5-0 in their last 5 games playing on 1 days rest and 5-2 in their last 7 overall. The Wild had two more power plays, including one that came with 2:03 remaining, but the Wild couldn’t find that go-ahead goal.

“That’s not a position we want to put ourselves in but everybody did a great job of bearing down tonight”, Carter said.

Center Anze Kopitar scored his first goal of the season, lifting the Los Angeles Kings to a 2-1 overtime victory over the Minnesota Wild on Friday night at Staples Center.Kopitar delivered at 2:19 of the extra period, gathering a pass from Tanner Pearson and firing a victor past goaltender Darcy Kuemper as the Kings (1-3-1) ended a three-game skid. Mikko Koivu tallied his second goal of the season when the rebound from a Zach Parise shot caromed right to him. I’m glad we came out with a better mindset right from that.

Over the course of the long National Hockey League season just about every team goes through skids and scoring droughts, it’s part of the game and this current scoring drought could end in another game or two and things will normalize once again for the Kings.

And now as the Kings look around their dressing room and search for answers, Anze Kopitar will need to stand up and take the lead in that search. They’ve scored two goals in three games, haven’t been successful on power plays, found themselves in the penalty box too many times and struggled defensively and offensively. The Kings forward scored the game-winning goal. “I felt more settled”, Kuemper said. “We were better through the neutral zone. We need production out of those other four or five minutes”.

Los Angeles has also won five straight over Colorado (2-2-0), and earned at least one point in the last eight meetings. Colorado is wrapping up its trip to Southern California after posting a 3-0 triumph in Anaheim on Friday. Instead of playing with the big chalk, I like the over here. “They showed a lot of character”. He hoped the Wild would give him time to settle into his game, to not force him to make numerous sprawling saves. Semyon Varlamov has allowed 13 goals on 82 shots faced and Reto Berra has given up zero goals on 40 shots. “The first three games were pretty rough for us”.

Thankfully, Kopitar led by example throughout the game, and in the team’s first ever 3-on-3 overtime session of the new season.

Kuemper went more than three months between starts last season before getting into the Wild’s second-to-last game and beating Nashville.