3 takeaways from Los Angeles Kings 3-1 loss to the Minnesota Wild

The Los Angeles Kings played the Minnesota Wild for the third and final time in the regular season on Monday night. They had already won the first two games and it wasn't relatively close as they out-scored them 9-2.

The final game was a different story as neither team was able to really establish a lead. The Kings would get the first goal of the game, surprisingly on a power play as Kevin Fiala found Adrian Kempe for the first goal.

In the second period, the Wild answered with a power play goal of their own to tie it at 1. In the final period, the Wild took the lead on another power play goal before they ended the game with an empty net goal in the final minute of the third period. These are some takeaways from the game on Monday for the Los Angeles Kings.

Alex Laferriere played great and deserved a goal

If there was one player who stood out for the Los Angeles Kings it was Alex Laferriere. He was continually making plays and really had some great shots on net and finished with six on the night.

One of those shots seemed almost like a certainty as Filip Gustavsson was out of position and Laferriere was able to get his own rebound and make another shot. However, defenseman Jon Merrill shaked behind Gustavsson and got his stick on the puck before it crossed the line.

Since the addition of Andrei Kuzmenko, Alex Laferriere has been skating with Quinton Byfield and Kevin Fiala. Both of those players have been excellent as Byfield had a six-goal game streak entering Monday and Fiala has had five points in the past five games. While Laferriere hasn't produced at the same level he has been a great compliment to what the other two have done and a big reason for the line's overall success.

Both teams gets huge saves from their defenseman

While the Wild got a big save from their defenseman earlier in the game, the Los Angeles Kings also got a big stop by Mikey Anderson. It wasn't necessarily that close to the line but he was able to make a sliding save without his stick that almost certainly was going to be a goal by Matt Boldy

Anderson did get shaken up on the play but it didn't seem this is anything that would linger past this game. It came at a big point of the game in the third period as the two teams were tied at one.

Power play performance determined the outcome of this game

The deciding factor in this game was which teams capitalized on their power play chances. For the Wild, they had three power play chances and scored on two of them. This was a little surprising since the Kings have been so good with their penalty kill as of late and it was a big reason for their win streak.

However, the Kings continue to struggle with their power play and it cost them a game they probably should have won. They would score their only goal on their first power play opportunity but wouldn't be able to capitalize on the three after that one. The Wild are currently one of the Wild Card teams but they were missing key parts of their team and not at full strength.

While it is only one game and Jim Hiller shouldn't be looking to make drastic changes to lines, one area that he could make a change is on the power play units and moving Quinton Byfield up and dropping Anze Kopitar. It would be a significant shift as Kopitar has been a key part of that top power play unit for the better part of a decade but Byfield is playing at a higher level right now.