Mats Zuccarello scored the tiebreaking power-play goal with 4:38 left and the Minnesota Wild beat the Kings 3-1 on Monday night.
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.
Adrian Kempe scored for the Kings, and Darcy Kuemper — coming off shutouts in his last two starts — had 19 saves. Minnesota snapped the Kings’ five-game win streak.
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. It was hist 100th goal since signing with the Wild in 2019.
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 as he scored 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. That ended the goalie’s shutout streak at 176:06.
Takeaways
Kings: Los Angeles fell to 25-7-4 when scoring first and remained one point behind Edmonton for second place in Pacific Division.
Wild: 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
Key moment: Gustavsson made 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.
Key stat: The Wild were two for three on the power play after coming in two for six over the previous three games.
Up next: The Kings play at Chicago on Thursday to finish a two-game trip, and the Wild host Seattle on Wednesday.