Staal, Stalock Lead Wild past Kings 5-1
ST. PAUL, Minn. — Eric Staal scored the go-ahead goal late in the second period, Alex Stalock stopped 30 shots and the Minnesota Wild beat the Los Angeles Kings 5-1 Saturday night.
Gerald Mayhew, Joel Eriksson Ek, Mikko Koivu and Jared Spurgeon also scored, and Matt Dumba added two assists for Minnesota, which has won three of four after beginning the year 1-6.
Ben Hutton scored for Los Angeles, and Jonathan Quick made 22 saves for the Kings, who have lost two straight.
With the game tied at 1, Staal took a pass from Jason Zucker at the blue line, skated in alone on Quick’s left and beat him over his far shoulder for his third goal of the season at 17:04 of the second.
Minnesota put it away with a three-goal flurry in the third.
The Wild took a 1-0 lead on Mayhew’s second goal of the season at 5:50 of the first period. Dumba took a pass at the right point, skated to the top of the faceoff circle and fired a wrist shot that deflected off Mayhew and in.
Los Angeles evened the score early in the second when Hutton got his first goal as a King. After gaining the zone, Adrian Kempe dropped a pass for Hutton, who beat Stalock on a one-timer from the high slot.
Less than a minute later, Stalock made an acrobatic save to stop Jeff Carter on a 2-on-1 to keep the game tied.
The Kings outshot the Wild 14-5 in the second, but Minnesota killed off consecutive penalties before taking a 2-1 lead late in the period on Staal’s goal.
The Wild expanded their lead in the opening moments of the third period when Quick couldn’t control the rebound of Dumba’s shot and Eriksson Ek jammed it home.
Five minutes later, Koivu made it 4-1 when he finished an odd-man rush for his first goal of the season. Quick stopped a point-blank shot by Marcus Foligno, but the rebound hopped out into the slot and Koivu chipped it into the net.
Spurgeon scored Minnesota’s fifth goal when he gathered a loose puck off a scramble in front of the net and fired it over a diving Quick.
Notes
The Kings are 0-6 when trailing after two periods and have given up at least five goals in 5 of 11 games this season. … Both teams ranked in the bottom third of the league on the power play and the penalty kill going into the game. Both power-play units went 0 for. … The Wild activated Eriksson Ek from the injured list. To make room for him on the roster, C Gabriel Doumont was returned to Iowa of the AHL. … F Jordan Greenway and G Devyn Dubnyk each missed a second straight game with upper-body injuries. … Minnesota plays six of its next seven on the road.
Up Next
Kings: At Chicago on Sunday.
Wild: At Dallas on Tuesday.
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Patrick Donnelly, The Associated Press
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