Blues send Kings to 4-3 loss in OT

In St Louis, Brayden Schenn hit for the game-winner on Sunday afternoon in a 4-3 win for the Blues over the visiting Los Angeles Kings.

“You just take off whenever you see a turnover in overtime,” Schenn said. “You just take off. Whether he gets you the puck or not, you just create space for him if he is going to carry it up. He’s got great vision and he found me.”

Joel Hofer made 30 saves in the win.

St Louis improved to 26-20-2) off their third straight win in extra time.

“We’re finding a way to win, which is great,” St Louis’ Jordan Kyrou said. “… It’s more of a mentality than anything. We’re playing really strong as a team. We always have each other’s backs out there. We’re playing together on the ice. That builds character, and we’ve shown a lot of resiliency these past couple games.”

LA trailed 3-2 in the third period when Phillip Danault, scored with 1:16 left in regulation to tie the game, 3-3, and force the extra session.

The Kings dropped to 22-15-10.

“Everybody’s going to feel a little different about it,” Los Angeles coach Todd McLellan said. “I think we played a pretty solid game. We take those penalties out — we got roasted on a bad line change, that can be cleaned up — you take that out and cut the penalties back, I think we had a good chance of winning, but we didn’t do that.”

LA grabbed a 1-0 lead at 4:06 of the opening stanza on a goal by Adrian Kempe.

St Louis replied with a strike by Nick Leddy at 12:51 of the first for a 1-1 tie.

In the middle frame, the Blues were assessed minor penalty, and the Kings picked up a shorthanded marker from Jaret Anderson-Dolan at 5:39 off an odd man rush.

The penalty killing unit for LA relaxed, and the Blues picked up a tying goal on the same power play when Pavel Buchnevich scored 55 seconds later to tie the game, 2-2..

“The PK did a good job (5-for-6), but way too many penalties, including myself,” the Kings’ Trevor Moore said. “We played a pretty good game tonight, but it’s not enough. We can’t be making the mistakes like taking penalties. We need to close out some overtime games and come away with some wins.”

Kyrou regained the lead for St Louis at 12:07 of the middle frame for a 3-2 score headed to the third. David Rittich made 28 saves in the loss.