Gone Puck Wild
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Wild Finish as Minnesota Defeats Kings in Overtime

By Brandon Quast

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA - JANUARY 16: Marcus Johansson #90 of the Minnesota Wild celebrates his game winning goal with Greg Pateryn #29 and Carson Soucy #21 during a 4-3 overtime win over the Los Angeles Kings at Staples Center on January 16, 2021 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Harry How/Getty Images)
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA - JANUARY 16: Marcus Johansson #90 of the Minnesota Wild celebrates his game winning goal with Greg Pateryn #29 and Carson Soucy #21 during a 4-3 overtime win over the Los Angeles Kings at Staples Center on January 16, 2021 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Harry How/Getty Images) /
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Minnesota Wild win Game Two of the season after the OT Kirill-er in the first game of the season. Let’s dive into how the Minnesota Wild did in game two and how this momentum can continue.

Let’s start by saying that the Minnesota Wild are now 2-0 in the standings and that this group of players have shown some great chemistry early in the season.

First Period

It was a rare early great start for Minnesota, as 21 seconds in to the game, defenseman Matt Dumba scored after shooting the puck from the goal line and getting a lucky bounce off of a Kings player, the type of goal the Wild were victims of in Game 1.

https://twitter.com/fsnorth/status/1350627763183644677

That was Dumba’s first of the year and what a great way for Jordan Greenway to find the score sheet in such a sneaky way.

With about 3 minutes left in the 1st, the Kings tied the game thanks to Gabriel Vilardi. The goal was initially called no-goal on the ice and was reviewed because the net was in the process of being knocked off the anchors, but after review, it was determined that the puck had crossed the line before the net came off.

The Wild again would surrender a First Period lead and go into intermission on their heels and tied.

Second Period

The 2nd period was all Kings, and around the 13 minute mark in the period, Drew Doughty took a shot from the point. Kirill Kaprizov used his stick to smartly and skillfully redirect the shot, but it bounced off Kings forward Blake Lizotte and subsequently ended up behind Cam Talbot for the Kings to take a 2-1 lead.

Mentioned with the Dumba goal, this is the kind of goal the Wild were victims of in Game 1 and it continued here.

https://twitter.com/HeresYourReplay/status/1350644914372149248

The second Kings goal of the period came from Andreas Athanasiou as Jeff Carter and Athanasiou isolated the lone Wild defenseman on a 2-on-1 break out from the neutral zone. Carter came down the wing, took a backhand shot that Talbot fumbled in his glove and Athanasiou swept into the goal to give the Kings a 3-1 lead with about 10 minutes left in the 2nd period.

https://twitter.com/HeresYourReplay/status/1350646517519015938

Third Period

Just as it was all Kings in the 2nd period, it was all Wild in the 3rd period as Joel Eriksson Ek cleaned up a rebound in the crease for his 1st goal of the season and to bring the Wild within a goal of tying the game. It was a nice set up from defenseman Greg Pateryn to put the puck on net where a rebound could be easily generated.

Just after surviving a long chance at the empty net, with 10 seconds left in the game, the Wild broke out of their own zone and entered the offensive zone where Kaprizov went to battle for the puck along the side wall. Zach Parise was able to beautifully loosen the puck which found the stick of Ryan Suter who tied the game with less than a second remaining in regulation.

(Editor’s Note: This goal is now credited to Matt Dumba, his second of the game, about 12 hours after the goal was originally scored. Still, Parise and Suter were instrumental to get this goal to happen.)

https://twitter.com/fsnorth/status/1350665045915611144

Overtime

The Wild found themselves right back where they were a couple of nights earlier. Going into overtime, the Wild faithful were probably reminiscing back to when Kaprizov scored that beautiful game winning goal.

In this overtime, the Wild and Kings battled back and forth until defenseman Jonas Brodin passed the puck to Kaprizov who immediately tossed a cross ice pass to Marcus Johansson on the faceoff dot for a one time shot that found the back of the net.

https://twitter.com/fsnorth/status/1350667593405894659

These back to back overtime wins have to sit well with Bill Guerin and company as Kirill Kaprizov assisted on Marcus Johansson’s game-winning goal. It has to be rewarding to see these new guys producing.

Game Stats

Minnesota led shots on goal with 44 over the Kings 33. Faceoff percentage for the Wild was 55% (much better from game 1) and forward Nico Sturm led with 100% on his faceoff draws.

More from Gone Puck Wild

Both teams were 0/5 on the power play (take that how you wish).

12 minutes in penalties were assessed to each team.

Hits were 17-18 with the Kings leading. There isn’t just one Wild player that led in hits, multiple players had at least 2 hits.

Kings led in the blocks category with 14 and the also led in giveaways by a large margin of 16-3.

The Minnesota Wild are now 2-0 and doing well to fulfill the quick start that Site Expert Lake Martin said they needed to have.

Wild will be back in action as they take on the Ducks in Anaheim on Monday the 18th!

All stats and data are from nhl.com

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