Kings lose to Wild, fail to gain in Pacific

LOS ANGELES -- Kirill Kaprizov had a goal and an assist when the Minnesota Wild ended the Los Angeles Kings’ eight-game home winning streak with a 3-1 victory at Crypto.com Arena on Monday.

Filip Gustavsson made 23 saves for the Wild (39-33-9). 

“They ran us out of the building last time we were here, 6-0 last time [on March 20],” Gustavsson said. “We came here, we wanted to finish off strong, and we played good in San Jose [in a 6-2 win at the Sharks on Saturday]. We wanted to come here and win this game, and personally, like I said, finish off on a good note.”

Blake Lizotte scored and Cam Talbot made 25 saves for the Kings (43-27-11), who were unable to extend their lead over the idle Vegas Golden Knights for third in the Pacific Division. Los Angles is one point ahead of Vegas, which has a game in hand. Both teams have already clinched a berth in the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

“I don’t think it matters who we play,” Kings defenseman Mikey Anderson said. “Obviously, anyone that’s making the postseason is a really good team. Whoever it is, we need to be ready to play, probably (with) a little more intensity than we had today if we want to have some success.”  

Matt Boldy put the Wild ahead 1-0 at 14:14 of the first period on the power play. He built up speed entering the offensive zone off the pass of Marco Rossi, got behind defenseman Matt Roy and beat Talbot five-hole with a wrist shot.

“We played well from the start to the end,” Boldy said. “Pretty complete game.”

Minnesota had a chance to extend its lead with 51 seconds left after Talbot came out of his crease to play the puck, but Alex Goligoski’s shot into an open net was broken up by Trevor Moore.  

Ryan Hartman made it 2-0 at 19:55 of the second period, finishing off a 2-on-1 rush from Kaprizov with a wrist shot. Kaprizov got his 50th assist.

“It’s always better to win games at the end,” Kaprizov said. “You (could) just put your heads down and say, ’OK, we don’t want to play.’ We want to play and try and make some plays.”   

Kaprizov made it 3-0 at 8:25 of the third period, banking the puck in off Talbot’s back from behind the net for his 45th goal.

“Smart, really smart move,” Wild John Hynes said. “It’s really tough to defend. The goalie can’t defend it really. The only way to defend it is if it bounces the right way for the goalie.”

Lizotte cut it to 3-1 at 14:36 on a wrist shot from the high slot.

“You can’t be taking steps back,” Anderson said. “We got to keep building ‘cause you don’t get any time after the year to build your game up. You’re jumping right into it, so just making sure we’re ready to go. We get one more try before we need to be ready.”  

NOTES: Boldy extended his point streak to five games (three goals, four assists). … Rossi had two assists, giving him 40 points (21 goals, 19 assists). He is the third Wild rookie to have at least 40 points, joining Kaprizov in 2020-21 and Brock Faber this season. … Talbot got his third assist of the season in 53 games for the Kings. He had three career assists in 432 NHL games coming into this season.