LOS ANGELES — The Kings extended their season-long chain of winless games to five, slipping against the St. Louis Blues for the second time in five days, 3-2, in a shootout on Wednesday night at Crypto.com Arena.
Quinton Byfield and Trevor Moore each scored a goal for the Kings in regulation before Kevin Fiala converted in the shootout. Darcy Kuemper stopped 28 shots. The Kings now sit three points behind Edmonton for second place in the Pacific Division and trail first-place Vegas by nine points.
Jake Neighbours opened the scoring and Robert Thomas added a power-play goal for St. Louis. Jordan Binnington peppered several stunners, including four in overtime, into his 21-save assortment.
Neighbours added a goal in the shootout and Thomas scored the winner, creating total offensive symmetry for the Blues in a victory that moved them within one point of the final wild-card berth in the Western Conference. They’ve gone 6-1-1 in their past eight games, while the Kings have scored two goals or fewer in each game during their skid and in all of their past 23 losses.
“It’s a challenging time for us, but we’ve just got to keep sticking together,” Kings coach Jim Hiller said, adding once again that he didn’t feel his group would ever be a high-scoring one.
The Kings did their best to own overtime, but it belonged to Binnington. They produced a pair of superb chances for Phillip Danault, including a breakaway, and another for Byfield, who was thwarted by a lunging Binnington. Binnington then denied Moore on a breakaway in the dying embers of OT.
“He’s always been that guy, he always makes the big saves when we need it most,” Thomas said of Canada’s gold-medal winning goalie at last month’s 4 Nations Face-Off. “He doesn’t get enough credit for all the things he does.”
The third period, particularly its last six minutes, served as something of an advertisement for a 4 Nations-style scoring system where a regulation win is worth three points, as both teams appeared content to play for overtime and at least one point apiece at times.
The Kings settled in during the second period and were rewarded for their efforts with their first lead of the night, 14 seconds past the halfway point of the contest. Yet they found themselves back in a tie game thanks to a Blues power-play goal 47 seconds before the second intermission.
The Kings had pulled ahead off some extended zone time that first saw a magnificent chance for Warren Foegele in front stymied by a sliding Binnington. They recovered the puck and scored an unconventional goal. Mikey Anderson’s rim-around pass hit the end boards and banked toward the goal line, where Moore controlled it and, with his back to Binnington, stuffed the puck through the near post off his backhand. It was Moore’s 12th goal of the season, with half those coming in his past 11 appearances.
After a won faceoff, former Duck Cam Fowler moved the puck low for Pavel Buchnevich. He spotted Thomas in the inner part of the left circle, sliding a pass that banked off a prone Vladislav Gavrikov and right to Thomas for an equalizer. The Blues’ once-unremarkable power play has been a top-10 unit in the NHL since the calendar turned.
Even for a team that didn’t spend the last several days emphasizing “urgency” and “desperation,” the Kings turned in a low-wattage first period, but one that was scoreless until the final 70 seconds.
Then, the two sides exchanged goals, with Neighbours striking and Byfield responding 32 seconds later.
St. Louis had kicked things off when Drew Doughty’s long pass failed to connect with Alex Turcotte, allowing Colton Parayko to send Neighbours ahead with speed on a counterattack. His slick stickhandling set up a rising backhand that popped over Kuemper on the short side.
The Kings escaped even thanks to their emergent combo of Byfield and Fiala. Byfield sauced a pass for Fiala, who dished back to Byfield. He curled above the left faceoff dot and tucked a far-side shot under the crossbar, which was further aided by three bodies, two Blues and Kings winger Alex Laferriere, in Binnington’s sightline. Byfield has a dozen goals this season, while he and Fiala have paced the team in scoring since Dec. 15 with 22 points apiece.
“As he turned, he didn’t look, he had one intention. When he turned, he got himself low, and he shot,” said Hiller, plauditing Byfield’s work on his shooting accuracy and range.
Byfield said he felt the Kings were better in this game than they were in a 4-1 loss to the Blues on Saturday, but that they still put Kuemper in too many tough spots in his view.
Next up, the Kings will seek to avoid a season-series sweep when they host these same Blues again on Saturday night. That will come a day after Friday’s trade deadline and also mark the third meeting between the two Expansion Six franchises in eight days.