Adrian Kempe and Alex Laferriere scored goals in the opening two periods as the Los Angeles Kings extended their season-best winning streak to five games with a 4-1 victory over the visiting Minnesota Wild on Saturday night.
Trevor Moore scored two empty-net goals and Anze Kopitar recorded an assist for the Kings in the 1,400th game of his career.
Los Angeles goaltender Darcy Kuemper made 22 saves in his 400th career game as the Kings earned their second victory of the season over the Wild, who are tied for the NHL lead in points.
Yakov Trenin scored a goal and Marc-Andre Fleury made 30 saves for the Wild, who saw their season-best five-game winning streak come to an end on the second night of a back-to-back. Minnesota lost in regulation on the road for just the second time this season.
Minnesota’s Kirill Kaprizov, who started the day as the NHL’s point leader, saw his three-game goal streak and his five-game point streak come to an end.
The Kings took a 1-0 lead 43 seconds before the end of the first period when Kempe charged the Wild goal and had a Fleury save, off a Kopitar shot, bounce off his skate and go into the back of the net. It was Kempe’s team-leading 13th goal of the season.
Kopitar, who has both 700 road games and home games in his career, recorded his 23rd assist of the campaign. Kopitar is the 43rd skater in NHL history to play in 1,400 games and one of four who is active.
Los Angeles made it 2-0 at 8:33 of the second period when Laferriere scored on a power play after a shot from the left circle, putting it just inside the right post. It was his 12th marker of the season.
Moore made it 3-0 for Los Angeles into an empty net with 1:54 remaining in the third just before the Wild received Trenin’s goal with 1:13 left to spoil Kuemper’s shutout bid in his first start since returning from injured reserve. Moore scored into an empty net again eight seconds later.
The Wild had just three shots on goal in the second period and 23 in the game compared to 34 for the Kings.
–Field Level Media
