Kings’ five-game winning streak ends in road loss to Minnesota
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ST. PAUL, Minn. — Mats Zuccarello scored the tiebreaking power-play goal with 4:38 left and the Minnesota Wild beat the Kings 3-1 on Monday night to end L.A.’s five-game winning streak.
Adrian Kempe scored for the Kings, and Darcy Kuemper — fresh off shutouts in his last two starts — had 19 saves and had his shutout streak end at 176:06. L.A. took its first regulation loss since March 3.
Ryan Hartman had a goal and an assist, Marcus Johansson also scored, and Jared Spurgeon had two assists for Minnesota. Filip Gustavsson finished with 28 saves, including a stellar save to snare Drew Doughty’s one-timer from center point through traffic 2:05 into the third period to keep the score tied 1-1.
Quinton Byfield scores in overtime to extend his goal streak to six games and deliver the Kings to a 1-0 victory over the Nashville Predators.
Zuccarello got a pass from Matt Boldy in the left circle, settled the puck and fired it past Kuemper with Marco Rossi screening the goalie to give Minnesota a 2-1 lead.
Johansson added an empty-netter with 56 seconds left to seal the win.
Kempe gave the Kings a 1-0 lead with a power-play goal 4:59 into the game, on a one-timer from the right circle off a pass from Kevin Fiala.
Hartman tied it at 1:51 of the second with a power-play goal as he redirected Jared Spurgeon’s point shot in the air past Kuemper, who gave up his first goal in more than seven periods.
The Kings fell to 25-7-4 when scoring first and remained one point behind Edmonton for second place in Pacific Division.
Minnesota won for the second time in six games (2-3-1). The Wild have a firm grip on the first wild card in the Western Conference and pulled four points behind third-place Colorado in Central Division.
They were two for three on the power play after coming in two for six over the previous three games.
