For a determined effort, playing shorthanded and on the second of a back-to-back, that was a tough way for the St. Louis Blues to lose.
The Blues picked up a critical point, but they fell for the first time in three games over the past eight days against the Los Angeles Kings when Quinton Byfield scored 27 seconds into overtime to give LA a 2-1 win on Saturday at crypto.com Arena.
It was an unfortunate ending to a valiant effort for the Blues, who finished a stretch of nine games in 15 days coming out of the 4 Nations Face-Off including three sets of back-to-backs, but Byfield scored after the Blues’ Dylan Holloway didn’t handle a Philip Broberg pass to him, throwing the timing of a breakout out of the zone, then hetting hemmed along the wall and not being able to poke a puck forward and out of the zone to Robert Thomas. Byfield moved into the left circle and beat Joel Hofer on the short side top shelf to end it:
The Blues (31-27-7), coming off a 4-3 win against the Anaheim Ducks on Friday and playing the game without their top defensive pairing in Colton Parayko (knee) and Cam Fowler missed the game to return to St. Louis for the birth of his second child today, plugged Tyler Tucker and Matthew Kessel into a lineup with three veteran defensemen and Philip Broberg, put in a valiant effort and went 2-0-1 against the Kings, taking five of six points.
Nick Leddy, one of the d-men who had to step up with Parayko and Fowler out of the lineup, stepped up to score a huge third-period goal — his first in 49 games — to help the Blues earn a critical point in the standings, and Hofer rebounded with a strong game, making critical saves in the third period after getting yanked in his last outing against the Dallas Stars.
Each team had a goal called back. The Blues just 36 seconds into the game when a potential Brayden Schenn power-play goal that was initially ruled a goal was overturned after a review in Toronto, and a Vladislav Gavrikov goal in the second period that would have given LA a 2-0 lead was overturned by a Blues challenge for offside and Byfield was the culprit who entered the zone prior to the puck.
The Blues, 7-1-2 their past 10 games, now will be off until Thursday but will enter Sunday one point behind the Calgary Flames for the second wild card in the Western Conference and tied in points with the Vancouver Canucks, but the Canucks have three games in hand and the Flames have two; they’re three points ahead of Utah Hockey Club but Utah has two games in hand. So by the time they continue this road trip against the Pittsburgh Penguins, the Blues can only hope they don’t fall too far behind in the standings with 17 games left in the regular season.
“I thought that was a real gutsy effort by our group,” Blues coach Jim Montgomery said. “Too bad we didn’t get the two points, but the blocked shots, the sacrificing for each other. … If we just keep playing like this, we’ll keep getting good results.”
Let’s get into Saturday’s Three Takeaways:
* Sequence leading to Leddy goal — The Blues entered the third period down a goal, thanks to an Anze Kopitar tip at 14:35 of the first period, and had just 11 shots on net and you had to wonder if they were going to be able to penetrate Darcy Kuemper and the Kings’ suffocating defense.
Well, enter Leddy, who was the beneficiary of what started as another great shift by the rising play of Zack Bolduc.
Bolduc started the play with a forecheck on two Kings, ultimately falling to the ice and disturbing the play. He sprang back up, stayed with it, then stick-checked the puck away from Kings defenseman Brandt Clarke to Jake Neighbours, who found Leddy coming off the bench before he could step into a clapper off the post and in for his first goal since Jan. 24, 2024 against — you guessed it — the Kings.
But Not only did Bolduc make those checking plays to begin the sequence, he then went to the net and took the eyes away from Kuemper, who never saw the shot at 4:16, the 36th goal by a Blues defenseman, ranking fourth in the league:
It got the Blues on level ground and gave them an opportunity for at least one point, and put them one shot away from earning two.
“Yeah, he’s really developing into an all-around NHL player,” Montgomery said of Bolduc, who had two shots on goal and three hits in 11:08. “He’s been really good for us. He’s doing a lot of good little things that are adding up to big things for the team.
“The screen by Bolduc on the Leddy goal, that’s winning hockey.”
* Shot-blocking mindset — With Parayko and Fowler out of the lineup, it was going to have to be a collective effort from an undermanned defensive unit.
But between Leddy, Broberg, Ryan Suter, Justin Faulk, Kessel and Tucker, they combined for 10 of the 23 blocked shots by the Blues on this night, and 14 of the 18 skaters had at least one blocked shot in the game.
Not only that, but with the game on the line late, Leddy makes a great sliding play taking away the slot, then using his stick to break up a play, and Suter and Faulk each had big breakups with their sticks when the Kings were pushing late for a winner.
“I think everybody accounted themselves really well,” Montgomery said. “We played a real good hockey team and only gave up 21-22 shots, and that’s because their gaps were tight. They made really good decisions breaking pucks out and disrupting plays in the neutral zone.”
* Hofer’s key saves — Hofer would be the first to admit the game last Sunday was not his finest moment.
This marked the second time in as many starts that he’s had the cage on the second of back-to-backs, and in those instances, your goalie needs to step up and give the proper boost to a tired team in front of him.
That didn’t happen when he was pulled allowing three goals on nine shots in a 6-3 loss to the Stars, but this was the kind of bounceback Hofer needed, and provided.
The moment the would-be goal by Gavrokov was overturned, it seemed to give the netminder some life knowing his team was one shot away from being on level terms.
His saves on Alex Laferriere and Philip Danault in the second period were ones to remember, then there was a save on an Adrian Kempe one-timer in the third period and he was able to stand tall on a number of close-range scrambles in the third as well preserving the tie.
“So many big saves to give us an opportunity to get a point,” Montgomery said, “and get into overtime. “I’ve said it often, we’ve got two really good goalies. ‘Binner’ has been proven about what he can do in big moments, and I’m sure Hofer’s days are ahead of him to show those things as well.”
* Hear more from Montgomery and players after the game:
“We’re hard to play against, guys are blocking shots, we’re doing all the little things right… and we’re going to keep this going ”
Nick Leddy, Joel Hofer, and Jim Montgomery speak to the media following Saturday’s game against the Kings. #stlblues pic.twitter.com/6pJByuapcp
— St. Louis Blues (@StLouisBlues) March 9, 2025
