Coach makes a point to praise Kings’ road play after shootout loss to Lightning

One defenseman hobbled through the dressing room with an ice pack on his foot. Another followed him shortly thereafter, displeased about having to ice his sore foot.

The Kings’ room had the look seen after a hard-fought playoff game. In this case, it was a regular-season game, and ended up a 2-1 loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning, via the shootout, on Wednesday night at Amalie Arena.

“Good test of character and we showed up,” Kings Coach Darryl Sutter said.

He was speaking about the just-completed five-game trip, in which the Kings went 2-2-1. But this particular game fit that description as the Kings maintained their persistence and finally scored with 5 minutes 23 seconds remaining in regulation, as left wing Milan Lucic tied it, 1-1, with a shot from the left circle.

For Lucic, it was another big goal and at a critical time, his seventh of the season. Assisting on it were Tyler Toffoli and Jeff Carter. Lightning center Tyler Johnson had the game’s first goal, scoring at 5:57 of the third period, cutting to the middle and beating Kings goalie Jonathan Quick on the blocker side.

“We didn’t get as many points as we wanted,” said Kings center Anze Kopitar, who logged big minutes, a season-high 24:53. “Tonight was a character game for us. We could have easily packed it in after that goal we gave up.

“Battled back. I think the point is going to be pretty big. We’re going home with five out of 10, not all that bad, but not as good as we want.”

The game featured Kopitar’s usual two-way excellence and a dominating showing from Kings defenseman Drew Doughty, who recorded nearly 30 minutes of ice time.

There were also statement games by the two goalies: Quick faced 30 shots and his Lightning counterpart Ben Bishop made 37 saves.

“Bish has been bailing us out,” said Lightning Coach Jon Cooper.

Said Kopitar: “He [Quick] has been great for us the whole year. I’m sure and I’m positive he’s going to continue being great for us.”

Quick’s long-range pass off the boards to Kopitar late in overtime nearly helped decide the issue. Kopitar went in on a breakaway but was denied by Bishop.

“I trust Quickie. I trust his judgment,” Kopitar said. “If it’s there, he’s going to make [the pass]. If not, he covers it and nothing happens.

“As soon as he grabbed the stick the way he usually does when he plays the puck, it was like, ‘OK, this is happening.’ I went in, made the move I wanted to and he just got a piece of it with his stick and unfortunately it went wide.”

Kopitar scored in the shootout, the only King to beat Bishop. Jonathan Marchessault and Valtteri Filpulla scored on Quick in the shootout.

The Kings had won twice in overtime and once in the shootout before Wednesday.

“Our defense as a whole played a pretty good game against a real skilled team,” Sutter said. “I thought we had an opportunity to win every game, battled back and had chances to tie every game, and win it.”

Tampa Bay, which lost to Chicago in the Stanley Cup Final in June, felt some glimmers of the playoff vibe from the spring.

“That was the talk in the locker room after the second period,” Cooper said. “This is [like] a playoff game. One thing about L.A., they don’t hurt themselves. They don’t beat themselves.”

lisa.dillman@latimes.com

Twitter: @reallisa