Kings blow lead, gasket in 4-3 shootout loss to Wild

ST. PAUL, Minn. — Road rage, indeed.

The losing goalie, Jonathan Quick, went straight to red hot anger without even stopping for a second at plain-old ire after the Kings blew a two-goal lead, losing to the Minnesota Wild, 4-3,

in a shootout on Saturday night at Xcel Energy Center.

Quick blew up in a big way after allowing all three Wild shooters — Zach Parise, Mikko Koivu and Matt Cullen — to score. After Cullen sealed it with a wrist shot, Quick swung and smashed his stick hard against the post, breaking it and tossing away the remnant.

One part lumberjack, one part rock-’n’-roller, smashing a guitar.

An homage to Pete Townshend was not going through his mind.

“You’re up, 3-1, you give them two points,� Quick said. “That’s going through my mind.�

By then, Quick had come down a notch or two and was merely simmering. He will likely see visions of Parise and Koivu deking and dancing in his mind.

The Kings had built a 3-1 lead on goals by captain Dustin Brown (his 14th of the season), Jeff Carter (19th), and Justin Williams, who scored his sixth, an unassisted effort, at 11:24 of the second period.

Additionally, the power play was humming along efficiently, as the Kings scored twice on their first two opportunities with the Brown and Carter goals.

Minnesota, which had lost at Dallas on Friday night, got one back by the end of the second on Charlie Coyle’s second-effort attempt, at 13:53.

They tied it, 3-3, with Parise’s power-play goal, just seconds after the Wild’s five-on-three advantage had expired.

“There’s no other word to describe it,� Williams said. “It was a sloppy game from us. It was certainly not the way we intended to play the game. But somewhere along the way, we lost our way. Let a team back in the game we had control of.

“We got away from our game. We had far too many turnovers in the neutral zone and at the offensive blue line, especially with a team that played last night. We let them off the hook.�

Defenseman Rob Scuderi agreed with the assessment of sloppy play. The Kings also quit pressing the issue and forcing the play.

“It’s a mixture of both,� Scuderi said. “I felt we had a real good two periods, carried the game except for maybe five or six minutes. Then we started to get a little sloppy, gave a couple of odd-man rushes, gave up a couple of chances on the power play.

“Then they started to make things happen.�

The Kings were also angered by a non-call, a high stick chipping the tooth of defenseman Slava Voynov.

What Kings Coach Darryl Sutter thought about the non-call, or anything else, was unknown.

Sutter was spotted walking in the corridor, breezed past reporters without a word and disappeared.

With all the anger, it should not be forgotten the Kings did emerge with a point.

Scuderi, reasonably, preferred to look at the big picture

“Certainly we’re not happy with the outcome of the game,� he said. “But you’ve got to move past it. We’ve gotten five points out of three games, so far. Usually if you can get half your road points during a season, that’s a pretty good thing. We have a chance to make this a killer road trip.

“But if we sit back and feel sorry for ourselves, then it’s just going to be an average one.�

SUNDAY AT DALLAS

When: 3 PDT

Where: American Airlines Center.

On the air: TV: Fox Sports West; Radio: 1150.

Record vs. Stars: 0-2.

Etc.: Jaromir Jagr of the Stars recorded his 1,000th NHL assist in Friday’s 5-3 win against the Wild.

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Twitter: @reallisa