10-15 Postgame - “For a lot of years in the league, this ones tough to explain”

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• Jon Rosen

In a polar contrast to their traditionally structured and defense-focused games a half-generation earlier, the LA Kings and Minnesota Wild erupted for a Smythe Division-level of offensive entertainment as the Kings ably responded to every Wild challenge in a building often unforgiving to teams trying to iron out their games.

Fuckin’ hope we never have to win like that again, but give the guys a lot of credit. They battled back every time [Minnesota] put us on our heels and it’s not very often the last couple years that we’ve been able to trade goals when we’ve needed them, and this was a night we needed to find some goals, and we found them. A lot of credit goes to the guys. That’s obviously not the way I think we want to be winning these games, but hey … sometimes throughout the season some games are going to call for that. – Cal Petersen

I had to decide there, when they tied it up, I was like, ‘we can’t give up another goal,’ and once we scored, I decided that was it. But we got some huge, huge blocks from Phil, from Mikey down the stretch, so I had some other goalies back there with me. – Cal Petersen

Today I felt pretty good from the start, and obviously a little more motivated playing against my old team. – Kevin Fiala

# Todd McLellan

You can see little snippets of things that are starting to happen, and that’s a positive sign.

I thought that Gabe and Quinton Byfield, other than maybe the penalty he didn’t need to take at the end, they were very capable of playing in those situations. … Trent Yawney has a tremendous amount of confidence in all six guys and he’s willing to put them out there. That’s how you grow as a team and how you grow as individuals. But we’re playing to win, and if we have to cut it back, we will.

For me, goaltending’s a lot ilke pitching. It’s tough to find your Cy Young Winner in April. You usually find them in September and October, and goaltending around the league is probably like that – it’s finding its way. We have to help our goaltenders as much as we can. We haven’t been as tight as we’ve been, we haven’t broken out as clean, and the [penalty parade] puts a lot of pressure on them.