It was another bruising, physical game between the L.A. Kings and St. Louis Blues.
But a third-period scoring outburst from the Kings turned the battle in their favor, as they defeated the Blues 4-1 on the NHL on NBCSN Thursday night.
The Kings got three goals - two from Trevor Lewis and an empty-netter from Jeff Carter - to break a 1-1 deadlock.
The second Lewis goal, a short-handed marker, was perhaps the deciding moment. It came just over two minutes after he provided L.A.'s second goal of the night, and gave the Kings a two-goal lead.
Blues goalie Jaroslav Halak came out to the play the shoot-in, but then let it go after it crossed the goal line. Had he played it, he would’ve been called for a penalty. Lewis picked up the puck, and with Halak out of the net, scored on the wrap around.
Halak took the blame for afterwards.
“You know, the trapezoid, I didn’t want to play the puck. I think I should have. I made a mistake at the worst possible time,” Halak said afterward, as per Jeremy Rutherford of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
Perhaps one of the more entertaining parts of this hockey game was an interview between whistles that involved Blues’ head coach Ken Hitchcock, who at the time was quite displeased with his team’s effort. That led to a pretty good Anson Carter impersonation of unhappy Hitchcock during the intermission break.