LOS ANGELES—Kirill Kaprizov had a goal and an assist as the Minnesota Wild ended the Los Angeles Kings’ eight-game home winning streak with a 3–1 victory Monday night.
Matt Boldy and Ryan Hartman also scored, Marco Rossi had two assists, and goaltender Filip Gustavsson made 23 saves for Minnesota (39–32–10), which was outscored by a combined 13–3 in its previous two meetings with Los Angeles this season.
Blake Lizotte scored and goalie Cam Talbot had 25 saves and an assist for the Kings (43–27–11), who have clinched a Stanley Cup playoff berth and remain one point ahead of the Vegas Golden Knights for third place in the NHL’s Pacific Division. Los Angeles has one game left, on Thursday against the visiting Chicago Blackhawks, while Vegas has two games to go.
The Kings were trying to win nine straight at home for the first time since their franchise-record, 12-game run at home in 1992–93.
Minnesota scored a power-play goal for the seventh straight game to take a 1–0 lead at 14:14 of the first period. Boldy received a lateral pass from Rossi as he crossed the Los Angeles blue line with speed. He cut between defensemen Vladislav Gavrikov and Matt Roy before sliding the puck between Talbot’s pads for his 29th goal of the season.
After the Wild killed a second penalty in the first period, Alex Goligoski nearly scored coming out of the box. Talbot came out of the crease to try and beat Goligoski to a long stretch pass, but Goligoski got to the puck first. Goligoski was forced by Jordan Spence to take the puck behind the net, however, and Trevor Moore then deflected Goligoski’s wrist shot over the wide-open net with 51 seconds left in the first period.
Minnesota failed to capitalize on two power plays in the second period, but Hartman scored at the end of a 2-on-1 rush with Kaprizov, with just five seconds left in the period to stretch the lead to 2–0. Kaprizov was credited with his 50th assist of the season on the play.
Kaprizov made it 3–0 at 8:25 of the third when he banked the puck off Talbot from below the goal line for his 45th goal of the season. Lizotte denied Gustavsson his fourth shutout of the season when he scored with a snap shot off the rush from just above the left circle at 14:36 of the third.
