4/5 RECAP: Wild Lose in OT to Kings After Coming Back in Third Period

It was Dustin Brown’s night against the Minnesota Wild.

First, he scored a hat trick before the second period was over, and then he scored the overtime winner just 23 seconds into the extra frame for a 5-4 Los Angeles Kings victory Thursday night in California.

The game went into overtime after the Wild (44-26-11) forced a two-goal effort in the third period to get there. The Wild finish the season series 0-1-2 against the Kings (45-28-8). Four of the past 10 meetings between these two have resulted in overtime/shootout losses for the Wild.

Before the puck dropped for the Wild, they knew their fate in the Stanley Cup Playoffs: They’ll face the Winnipeg Jets. As the second and third teams in the Central Division, this was pretty much expected but became official.

“It’s going to be fun,” said Eric Staal. “It’s going to be competitive; pretty good rivalry. It’s something we should all be looking forward to.”

Back to the Wild’s game, the first 20 minutes weren’t too bad. The scoring started early, first with a 1-0 Kings lead, Brown’s first goal, just 55 seconds into the contest. Then the Wild’s Ryan Murphy scored his second goal of the season at the 3:12 mark. Just one minute, 50 seconds later, Matt Dumba kept up his hot streak with his 14th of the season for a 2-1 Wild lead.

Then the tide changed.

“Other than the second period I thought we played really good,” said coach Bruce Boudreau.

The Wild trailed 4-2 at the end of 40 minutes after Brown’s hat trick, which he completed with 50 seconds left in the second period. Not only that, the Wild seemed to go forever without a shot on goal; they only managed four in the second period as the Kings beat them in this category in the second period 14-4. Tobias Rieder also scored in the second for the Kings.

A switch flipped for Minnesota again in the third period. They outshot the Kings 13-5 and outscored them 2-0 in the third.

Staal broke a three-game point-less streak with his third-period goal to get within one with 14:18 left in the game. It marked his 41st tally of the season, one off the franchise record for goals in a single season by one player.

The Wild tied the game with Nate Prosser’s first career shorthanded goal about halfway through the third period.

“I saw an opportunity to jump in on the play and was able to sneak one by him… kind of surprised myself a bit,” Prosser said.

Prosser flew into the offensive zone, took a pass from Mikko Koivu, split a pair of defensemen and fired his shot past Jonathan Quick to make it 4-4. The primary assist for Koivu was part of his three-helper night.

“It was good in the third… huge goal by Pross,” Staal said. “We fought through a lot… it was a good job battling back.”

The Wild also managed to kill a late 5-on-3 to keep the game tied before the extra session.

The Wild’s penalty kill streak ended with Brown’s second goal, at 7:42 of the second period. His power-play goal, and 26th goal overall this season, tied the game at two and ended the Wild’s perfect penalty kill run at seven games. Still, the kill went 5-for-6 in the game, going 25-for-26 over the past eight games.

In goal:

Alex Stalock (10-10-4) with 23 saves on 28 shots. Quick (33-27-3) with 23 saves on 28 shots.

Tidbits:

Up next:

The Wild wrap up their regular season with a game Saturday in San Jose.

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