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Kings rally, beat Wild in shootout

MINNEAPOLIS — The Los Angeles Kings rallied and won Thursday night against the Minnesota Wild. There was plenty of drama especially during the last minute of the game. Trevor Lewis made a key save as goaltender Jon Quick was out of position and Wild forward Matt Cooke had an open net. Lewis sprawled out and made the same to keep the game tied at 2 and force overtime.

“I just tried to make myself big and it hit me. I think it was a pretty good butterfly,” Lewis said. “They said I looked like a roller hockey goalie out there.”

“I thought we had it,” Cooke said of the late scramble. “There was like eight guys crawling in the crease and the puck keeps bouncing back to us but we can’t really get a clean shot.
This marked the Wild’s first home opening loss. Minnesota had won 11 in a row since tying their first home game ever which was against the Philadelphia Flyers in which they tied 3-3.
Minnesota opened up the scoring with a questionable first goal that needed t0 be reviewed to determine if it was a good goal. Kyle Brodziak came around the net and fired the puck back door to Cooke who was wide open, Cooke then adjusted his skate boot to deflect the flying puck back into the net. It was reviewed to see if whether or not Cooke made a distinct kicking motion. In the end it was ruled a good goal.
Six minutes later while on the power play LA defensemen Drew Doughty received a pass Slava Voynov and fired a slap shot past Wild goalie Niklas Backstrom.
Minnesota would strike back on the power play as Jonas Brodin took a beautiful pass from Nino Niederreiter as he was coming down the slot and buried top shelf past Quick.
The Kings were down 2-1 with less than seven minutes to play tied it up by a goal from Jeff Carter. Carter put one home on the backhand as Backstrom gave up a rebound and Carter was there to finish. Quick’s heroics were the only reason the Kings still had a chance to win; he stopped all 13 shots he faced in the middle period, when L.A. managed only three, and finished with 27 saves.
After a scoreless overtime,  Anze Kopitar and Carter beat Backstrom to the stick side in the shootout. Parise saw the puck slide off his stick, and Quick poke-checked Koivu’s attempt. Backstrom is now 21-33 all-time in shootouts, and his .556 save percentage is the lowest among the 24 goaltenders who’ve faced 100 or more attempts.

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