The St Louis Blues built a 2-0 lead in the first period Monday night in Los Angeles and then frittered it away as the Kings rallied for a 4-3 win.
The Kings scored three straight goals to take a 3-2 lead into the third period.
But they needed a goal from Paul LaDue midway through the period to break a 3-3 tie and get the win.
Jonathan Quick got the win, his 302nd, on the strength of 33 saves.
Quick is now fourth on the list of US-born goalies for wins.
“I just enjoy playing the game and competing, trying to win games,” Quick said. “I wasn’t aware of that until you guys asked me about it. It’s cool, but just trying to play hockey and win games and get back in the playoff race.”
Mackenzie MacEachern, Oskar Sunqvist and Ryan O’Reilly scored for the Blues.
“I thought we played a hard game, competed,” Blues coach Craig Berube said. “But we just made too many mistakes that cost us.”
Anze Kopitar, Tyler Toffoli and Drew Doughty also scored for the Kings.
“Maybe not the start we wanted, but we battled back,” Kopitar said. “Even that first period, we were down but we generated quite a few chances, just couldn’t connect on them. But we stuck with it and at the end of the day, [we] got the job done.”
[WATCH: All Blues vs. Kings highlights]
Jordan Binnington made 25 saves in the loss and dropped to 4-1-1.
“We’re starting to get back up close to where we want to be, but we can’t be affected by that,” O’Reilly said. “Every game is different and we’ve got to reinvent ourselves every game, and tonight we maybe got away from things that we’ve been doing to have success. It’s tough to do every night, but it’s what the best teams do. We can be one of those teams and we need a response in Anaheim.”
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