Blues finish western swing with 2-1 overtime loss to Kings

Matthew DeFranks, St. Louis Post-Dispatch on Mar 9, 2025

Published in Hockey

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LOS ANGELES – Saturday night could have been graded on a curve for the St. Louis Blues.

Without their entire top pair on defense, starting a backup goaltender, playing games 22 hours apart and against one of the best home teams in the NHL, the grade on Saturday's test could have been adjusted. St. Louis still emerged with one point in a 2-1 overtime loss to the Kings at crypto.com Arena.

Quinton Byfield scored the game-winning goal for the Kings 27 seconds into overtime.

Nick Leddy scored the game-tying goal for the Blues 4:16 into the third period, while Joel Hofer made 22 saves.

With the overtime loss, the Blues are one point behind Calgary for the final wild-card spot in the Western Conference, and the Flames have played two fewer games. St. Louis is now 7-1-2 since the break.

"It’s more about us being committed to being in a grind-it-down, slow-it-down game where we’re making it a halfcourt game and playing to our strengths," Blues coach Jim Montgomery said before the game.

The Blues were without both Colton Parayko (knee) and Cam Fowler (paternity) on Saturday night.

“We’re going to play the same way," Montgomery said. "We want to play an aggressive forechecking game, and hem people in their own end. We’ve done a really good job here even last night of extending o-zone time.”

The Blues return to St. Louis for practice before heading to Pittsburgh and Minnesota.

Couple goals disallowed

Each team had a goal disallowed on Saturday night, the Blues in the first period and the Kings in the second period.

St. Louis appeared to take a 1-0 lead just 36 seconds into the game thanks to Brayden Schenn’s goal on the power play. With the puck hovering in front of the crease, Schenn knocked it out of midair, off Darcy Kuemper’s mask and over his head. The puck danced on the goal line and partially across before Mikey Anderson swept it to safety.

The play was called a goal on the ice, but was wiped off after a video review. The Blues did not score on the remaining 1:52 of power play time.

Vladislav Gavrikov looked to give the Kings a 2-0 lead at 3:43 of the second period when he swiped a shot from the top of the circle between Joel Hofer’s legs. But Montgomery challenged the goal for offside, and replays determined that Quinton Byfield was across the blue line in an offside position.

The challenge ran Montgomery’s perfect offside challenge record to 12 for 12 in his NHL career.

Hofer bowed up the rest of the second period, making difficult saves on Alex Laferriere and Phillip Danualt to keep it a 1-0 game heading into the second intermission.

Anze Kopitar's goal with 5:25 remaining in the first period gave the Kings a 1-0 lead as he tipped Drew Doughty's point shot. It was the 307th goal that both Kopitar and Doughty factored in on, tying them for second all-time for a forward-defenseman combination with Kris Letang and Sidney Crosby.

Dad duty

The Blues were without defenseman Cam Fowler on Saturday night as he was back in St. Louis with his wife Jasmine for the birth of his second child. The Blues announced that Beau Matthew Fowler was born at 5:06 p.m., and that both mom and baby were doing well.

Colton Parayko is already out of the Blues lineup, expected to miss six weeks with a knee injury that requires a scope. So without Fowler as well, the Blues were down the entire top pairing from just two games ago.

Matthew Kessel entered the lineup and was paired with Ryan Suter, while Tyler Tucker joined Nick Leddy on the second pair. Kessel entered Saturday with one NHL game played since mid-December, when he was sent down to clear a roster spot for Fowler. That came on Jan. 31 in Colorado when Parayko missed the game sick.

“If I look at the games we played before he went back to play with Springfield, he was playing real aggressively,” Montgomery said. “I like the way he holds pucks in the offensive zone. I like the way he’s become a lot firmer and aggressive defensively. He’s been the best defenseman down there, making a lot of plays and playing a lot of minutes. We’re excited about what he can do, we’re very confident in him.”

When Kessel plays one more game, he will no longer be waivers exempt, meaning he must be exposed to other teams in order to be sent down the AHL.

Fowler was previously running the top power play unit for the Blues, but St. Louis turned to a five-forward attack on Saturday night with Robert Thomas at the point. Thomas manned the point for eight games in November and December, but not since then.

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