Kings-Blues takeaways: Binnington leads way in keeping St. Louis relevant in Western Conference wild card race after 3-1 win over Kings

Kings-Blues takeaways (3-13-24) (3:35)

Binnington put in another terrific performance with a 40-save effort and some of the Blues' young guns [Jake Neighbours and Alexey Toropchenko] scored goals, and Zack Bolduc, Matthew Kessel and Scott Perunovich continue to play important roles as the Blues (34-29-3) continue to make their push and stay within reach of the wild card.

They trail the Vegas Golden Knights, who currently hold down the second wild card, and Kings (33-21-11), who currently hold third in the Pacific Division, by six points. One will likely wind up in the top three in the Pacific and one will be on a wild card position, but the Blues have to keep close tabs on those two teams in particular.

"Obviously we need every point we can get right now," Blues center Kevin Hayes said. "When you're playing against teams that are above you, it's that much more important. I thought right from the start, we came to play. Wish we got 'Binner' the shutout, but we'll take the points."

Let's get into the takeaways from Wednesday's game and why the Blues won the season series against the Kings 2-1-0:

* First Period -- The Kings, who began a three-game road trip, carried a lot of the play in the opening 10 minutes of the game, but Binnington was holding down the fort for the most part.

The Blues were, however, in a bend-but-don't-break mindset. They had good sticks, were stepping up and breaking up L.A.'s pushes, and even when the Kings did have sustained zone time, the Blues were blocking shots (they had 19 for the game) and able to relieve pressure.

Brayden Schenn, who had one of his best defensive games of the season, caught Drew Doughty with an inadvertent high stick that put the Kings on the power play at 12:57. But Los Angeles would not get any shots during the game's opening power play.

Schenn however did set the tone for his game with this early hit on Kings forward Kevin Fiala.

As Blues interim coach Drew Bannister said postgame, the Blues were trying to find their legs in the game's opening 10 minutes or so after a long five-game road trip, that first game home can always be the toughest. But once they did, the Blues settled into the game.

Toropchenko extended his career-high for goals with his 13th when he put the Blues on top 1-0 at 17:30.

Colton Parayko and Nick Leddy each had crucial zone keep-ins prior to the goal; Parayko at the right point before feeding Oskar Sundqvist for a sharp-angled shot, then Nathan Walker broke his stick trying to fire off a rebound from the slot, but Leddy kept the puck in on his backhand, dropped it off to Toropchenko, who turned and fired a wrister above the right circle towards goal with traffic that eluded a couple sticks, including Walker's, and got past Cam Talbot.

"'Torpo's being 'Torpo,'" Bannister said. "He's a hard guy to play against and he gets rewarded putting the puck to the net. He gets us going when the first 10 minutes of the first period, we were trying to find our legs and seemed after we scored that goal, we started to get to our game."

L.A. outshot the Blues 14-9 for the period, but the Blues carried a 1-0 lead into the second period.

* Second Period -- The Blues seemed to be on the front foot early, and Neighbours scored at 1:57 to make it 2-0 doing what he does best: drive the net.

Perunovich had a key chip of the puck to break up a Kings o-zone play that turned into into a transition for Bolduc, who made his way through the neutral zone and gave it to Buchnevich, who quickly gave it to Justin Faulk along the right boards. Faulk fed Bolduc cutting through the middle and the 2021 first-round puck backhanded a puck to the top of the crease where Neighbours came in and scooped a shot over Talbot.

"I thought both 'Jakey' and Bolduc did an outstanding job," Bannister said. "If you look at who they're playing against, the way they played for young players on the ice and to be able to contribute."

Then Kessel, who earlier in the day signed a two-year, one-way contract extension, had a solid hit on Kings defenseman Andreas Englund to break up a play, and Binnington made a couple key saves on Trevor Lewis at 3:09 and 3:11 to keep it 2-0. And in the process, Binnington wasn't giving up rebounds on these in-tight shots the Kings had.

Alex Turcotte took the Kings' first minor at 5:46 for hooking, but the best chance to score came shorthanded for the Kings, and Binnington alertly got his body across on Doughty, who would have scored a nifty goal batting the puck out of midair driving the net at 7:05 off a feed from Anze Kopitar.

The Blues closed the gap in shots for the game, with L.A. holding a 28-23 edge, but the Blues led on the scoreboard 2-0 and were in a good position.

* Third Period -- The Blues started off the period managing the period well, thwarting off Los Angeles' push, and the Kings went to the PK again when they were caught with too many men at 5:30, but that quickly evaporated for the Blues when Pavel Buchnevich was called for tripping 21 seconds into it at 5:51.

Then, Binnington decided once and for all this one was in the bag.

With L.A. pressing, he was able to lunge to his left and kick out Mikey Anderson's one-timer at 10:56 before someone stopping Doughty's rebound attempt at 11:01 from the slot, doing so in the retro 90s jerseys, one wore by one of his idols: Curtis Joseph.

"Yeah, you have some funny thoughts there, seeing the pictures on the walls of the retro guys," Binnington said. 'I have the 'Cujo' helmet still sitting at home. If I knew we were in these jerseys today, I probably should've brought it. I didn't realize it was these jerseys. Maybe next year.

Kempe finally solved Binnington when he whacked in a second rebound attempt from the top of the crease at 13:08 after Doughty sent the puck to the net, but Binnington sealed off a 40-save performance in style. There was even a moment when the 18,096 wanted him to shoot the puck towards the empty net with a two-goal lead.

"It seems like the guys are having more fun and have each other's backs out there, finding ways to create offense off the rush," Binnington said. "I think that makes it more enjoyable as a player, and the energy builds from there."

"Makes things interesting and it starts to put a little heat on the teams that are in front of us and certainly an important game," Bannister said. 'You can feel after the Boston game that obviously we had struggled to find a good feeling in our room, and after that Boston game, it seemed that we were starting to get it back. When you have that feeling, you've got to continue to work and we have to trust our work and when you lose it's hard hard to find it back. Obviously after Boston, we found ourselves and feel good about ourselves, but we have to continue to work to keep that feeling."