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Some believe the Minnesota Wild overpaid to get forward Martin Hanzal in a trade on Sunday. But on Monday, the other player they got as a throw-in looked like a bargain.
Ryan White, who came over from Arizona in the Hanzal deal, had a goal and an assist in his Wild debut, and Mikael Granlund scored just 12 seconds into overtime in Minnesota’s 5-4 win over the Los Angeles Kings.
Off the opening face-off of the extra session, Granlund split a pair of Kings defenders, then scored on a pretty stick-handling play for the Wild’s only lead of the game.
Minnesota (40-14-6) won for the third time in four games behind goalie Devan Dubnyk’s 26 saves and regulation goals from White, Jason Zucker, Nino Niederreiter and Jordan Schroeder.
The Kings (30-27-5) held leads of 1-0, 2-1, 3-2 and 4-3, only to see Minnesota pull even each time. Los Angeles got goals from Marian Gaborik, Jake Muzzin, Tanner Pearson and Nick Shore but lost for the second time in the past three games despite 30 saves from Jonathan Quick.
“I think if we won 1-0, we’d take that, too,” Shore said. “It doesn’t really matter how you win games at this point in the year if you’re winning. We need a better job in front of (Quick). He played well and had a lot of big saves for us.”
It was just the sixth multi-point game of White’s 295-game NHL career. He admitted coming from the Coyotes, who are well out of the playoff hunt, to the West-leading Wild was an unexpected thrill.
“It’s an easy team to jump into. A veteran group in here,” White said. “I just came in and went about my business today, and the guys have been helping me out all day since I’ve been here. They were ready to go tonight, so I just tried to jump on the bandwagon.”
Gaborik scored at 1:57 of the third period, giving him 100 points in a Kings uniform and putting the visitors up 4-3. However, Zucker spun around 30 feet out from the crease and slid a low shot between Quick’s knees to tie the game with 12:56 to play.
The Kings were up 2-1 after 20 minutes. Shore broke a 21-game streak in which he was held without a goal. Niederreiter answered for Minnesota after he was left alone in front of Quick and flipped a wrist shot past the goalie. But Pearson scored to put the Kings back in the lead, with a seeing-eye shot that deflected off the leg of Wild defenseman Jonas Brodin and past Dubnyk on the glove side.
“I think we got the start we wanted,” Kings coach Darryl Sutter said. “We’ve had trouble scoring that first goal on the road and scoring five-on-five goals. It was a good first period.”
The Wild tied the score 2-2 early in the second period when Schroeder’s centering pass from behind the net went off Kings defender Alec Martinez and past Quick. But the Kings answered to lead 3-2 on a long-range shot by Muzzin that deflected off Hanzal and eluded Dubnyk.
Minnesota drew even a third time when White tipped an Eric Staal shot low and under Quick at 13:05 of the middle period.
“It was one of those plays where simple plays, especially for us coming off the break, simple plays were going to be effective,” said Staal, who had plenty of praise for White, his newest line mate. “He’s one of those guys that’s tenacious around the fore check, around the net, got a bounce there and a big goal, so good for him.”
Canadians 4, Devils 3 (OT)
The captain came to the rescue and, thus, Montreal rallied for a thrilling overtime victory over New Jersey at the Prudential Center.
Montreal captain Max Pacorietty scored twice in the third period, including the game-tying tally with 53 seconds left in regulation. Alex Galchenyuk’s power-play goal 2:54 into the extra session served as the winner for the Canadians.
Lightning 5, Senators 1
Tampa Bay refused to play like a team packing it in despite seeing two key players moved out before the trade deadline.
In a playoff-intense showing, the Lightning ran roughshod over Ottawa at Amalie Arena despite seeing Ben Bishop and Brian Boyle traded away in a 24-hour span.
Nikita Kucherov recorded his second career hat trick. Jonathan Drouin picked up three assists.