Carter's OT tally leads Kings past Wild
Jeff Carter's second goal of the game at 4:26 of overtime Monday night gave the Los Angeles Kings a critical 4-3 win over the Minnesota Wild at Xcel Energy Center in Saint Paul, Minn.
Carter's eighth tally of the season came on a wrister from the slot over the blocker of Devan Dubnyk, enabling Los Angeles to start a four-game road trip with two points. It has 86 points, tying it with Anaheim for third place in the Pacific Division.
Los Angeles forced overtime with Dustin Brown's 22nd goal at 19:13, about a minute after it pulled goalie Jonathan Quick for a sixth attacker. Brown deflected Drew Doughty's wrister from the right point into the top right corner.
Minnesota grabbed a brief 3-2 lead when Joel Eriksson Ek scored his fourth goal of the season at 17:29 of the third, taking Jason Zucker's pass from behind the net and slipping a wrister into an open net after getting Quick to commit to a shot fake at the right post.
Los Angeles carried the play to Minnesota for most of the first two periods, creating quality chances while keeping the Wild from doing the same, and scoring the first two goals.
Tanner Pearson made it 1-0 at 18:47 of the first with his 15th goal of the season. Brown slipped a backhand pass to him in the slot and Pearson roofed a wrister over the blocker of Dubnyk.
Jeff Carter upped the lead to 2-0 with a power-play marker at 6:21 of the second period. Dubnyk made the initial save on Jake Muzzin's point blast, but the rebound bounced to Carter at the left post and he made no mistake, flicking it into the upper left corner of the net.
Minnesota finally formulated a meaningful response at 12:08 with Zach Parise's ninth goal. Taking a drop pass from Nino Niederreiter, Parise skated from right to left, undressing a defender with a nifty deke, and beat Quick with a wrister to the top left corner.
Eric Staal tied the game with his 39th goal at 19:04, thanks largely to a textbook stretch pass from Ryan Suter that sent him in on Quick at the blue line. Staal had plenty of time and space to tee up a wrister that beat Quick to the stick side.
Quick finished with 24 saves, and Dubnyk notched 26.
--Field Level Media