LOS ANGELES – Changes were everywhere.
Crowd noise was piped in, the pregame hoopla was scaled back, and both benches were scrubbed down at intermission – all adjustments the NHL has made from the last regular season to resurrect itself in individual arenas during the middle of a pandemic for a shortened, 56-game schedule.
The Wild lineup was different, too, the brainchild of General Manager Bill Guerin's offseason maneuvering.
And the debut of this new look yielded a result the group was designed to achieve, a plucky 4-3 come-from-behind win in overtime against the Kings on Thursday night at Staples Center at the start of the team's season-opening four-game road trip.
These two West Division rivals will face off against Saturday in Los Angeles.
Rookie Kirill Kaprizov was the architect, scoring the game-winner in overtime and assisting on two other goals — a sensational NHL debut for the Russian winger.
He scooped up an errant pass to skate in alone on goalie Jonathan Quick and deked the puck into the net at 3 minutes, 47 seconds.
Before that, Kaprizov put the Wild's third-period rally in motion with his second smart setup of the night.
He fed Victor Rask for a shot that was redirected past goalie Jonathan Quick by Zach Parise at 3:15 to cut the deficit to 3-2.
And at 9:42, the Wild pulled even on a quintessential shift by Marcus Foligno.
After a heavy hit to keep the pressure on the Kings, Foligno hustled to a bouncing puck and whacked it by Quick.
This frenetic finish came after a ho-hum start for both teams, who looked like they were trying to shake off rust in the first period — a choppy start that wasn't unsurprising considering training camp was condensed and there were no preseason games.
Shots were kept to a minimum through the first half of the period, and play swerved back and forth without any real sustained pressure at either end.
Not until Kaprizov flexed his hockey IQ did the game break open.
After stretching out the Kings defense by patrolling the offensive blue line, Kaprizov took a pass into the zone and cut to the middle where he appeared to lose control of the puck. But that didn't hurt the Wild, since a pinching Jonas Brodin pounced on the puck and wired it past Quick at 16:06 to open the scoring.
The assist was Kaprizov's first of three points in his first NHL game, and linemate Parise scooped up the puck to preserve the memento.
That lead almost held through the period but in the waning seconds, Los Angeles tied it.
In his first appearance with the Wild since the team signed him to a three-year, $11 million contract to take over its netminding duties, Talbot couldn't gobble up a rebound and Carter poked in the loose puck with three seconds to go in the first.
The Wild had a glorious opportunity to retake the lead in the second when it was gifted five power plays by the Kings, but the team blanked on every chance.
Instead, Los Angeles took control.
During one particular 4-on-4 segment, the Kings' Andreas Athanasiou tucked in a rebound after the puck first caromed off defenseman Matt Dumba's skate to make it 2-1 at 7:12.
And then on the power play, a Dustin Brown wraparound bounced off defenseman Carson Soucy's and into the net at 17:05 for Brown's 300th career goal. Los Angeles finished 1-for-4 with the man advantage. Talbot ended up with 32 stops and went a clean 12 for 12 in the third to backstop the Wild's surge. Quick had 23 saves for the Kings.
