The Los Angeles Kings dropped their first game of the season last night, losing 4-3 to the Minnesota Wild in overtime.
Obviously, one story from the game is that the Kings blew a two-goal lead. They were up 3-1, before the Wild rallied back and won it in overtime. On top of that, it was terrible and avoidable miscommunication between veteran players in overtime which led to the game-winning goal.
That said, there are positives from the game. The Kings were generally pretty decent defensively and didn’t give Minnesota a ton of great chances. In addition to that, the Kings outshot the Wild and were arguably the better team through a good portion of the game. It was also a variety of forwards who were getting opportunities, which is good to see.
In net, Jonathan Quick’s stats don’t look good, with four goals allowed on 27 shots, but I thought he’d played alright overall. He didn’t allow any bad goals, even if he could’ve had a couple of them.
The Kings played well enough to win and the bounces didn’t go their way. Despite the loss and the blown lead, it was a competitive game and while it would’ve been great to get the extra point, it wasn’t a bad outing for the Kings, especially considering it was the first game in about 10 months for many players.
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Here’s today’s poll question (results and discussion will be posted in a future article):
Were you happy with the Kings' performance against the Wild?