Kings’ Kopitar out after taking elbow to face

He played another three shifts before exiting the game and not returning.

Jeff Carter, Tanner Pearson and Trevor Lewis scored for the Kings, who lost centre Anze Kopitar to an upper-body injury in the first period but still won for the eighth time in nine games.

Los Angeles Kings goalie Jhonas Enroth, of Sweden, makes a save on… Kopitar has been an integral part of the Kings two recent Stanley Cup winning teams with a combined 46 points in 46 games in the playoffs during those two Stanley Cup runs.

Kopitar took a hard elbow to the face from Blues’ right winger Ryan Reaves in the first period and had trouble getting to the bench. The Kings captain has three assists, no points in his last three games and played a season-low 14 minutes and 33 seconds at St. Louis.

Kopitar said he went through the mandated protocol for players suspected of having a concussion and that “the tests were good”.

Originally, at full speed, it looked as though Reaves was attempting to simply slow Kopitar with a little nudge as he came from behind the net and out across the mouth of the goal. Top scorer Vladimir Tarasenko then missed Saturday’s game against Minnesota with a leg injury, but captain David Backes recorded his first two goals of the season and goaltender Jake Allen delivered another strong performance to lead St. Louis to a 3-2 overtime victory. “We just couldn’t get the third goal”. He is in the last season of a seven-year $47.6 million contract. Enroth stopped 39 of 40 shots in a 4-1 win over San Jose on October 22.

“I think he showed a lot of composure and made the timely saves”, Sutter said. “I’m not sure how much work he had, but he made timely saves”.