Kings End It on Bad Note

Eager to get home after eight games and 17 days on the road, the Kings left something behind Thursday night in the Savvis Center.

They failed to securely pack a victory over the St. Louis Blues, giving up the tying goal to Doug Weight with 31 seconds to play in regulation and the winner to Alexander Khavanov 62 seconds into overtime.

Their 3-2 loss was affixed to the record of goaltender Felix Potvin, who deserved better after stopping 35 shots, 21 in a third-period barrage.

“I’m sure my teammates all feel the same way: We let him down the way we played,” King forward Ian Laperriere said. “That was his win. He played unbelievably, but a couple mistakes at the end cost us the game, cost him the game.”

Outshot, 23-3, over the final 20 minutes of regulation and 37-12 overall, the Kings still were less than a minute from winning in front of 19,667 when defenseman Al MacInnis of the Blues launched a shot from the right point. It deflected off the stick of teammate Pavol Demitra right to Weight, who slapped it into the net.

“They got a lucky bounce,” King defenseman Mathieu Schneider said, “but they could have scored three or four other goals before that.”

Nearly a month on the road -- starting Oct. 23, they played 13 of 15 games away from home -- finally caught up to the Kings, Schneider said.

“I think it was just a case of us running out of gas,” he said of the Blues’ domination of the third period. “We had no jump left. Simple things were becoming hard tasks for us out there. We just fell apart.”

Potvin said he never saw the puck on the tying goal.

He got a better look at the winner, scored from just outside the crease by Khavanov off a pass from the corner by Petr Cajanek.

“I knew he was in front,” Potvin said of Khavanov. “I was trying to time it and he just made a good shot, put it underneath my arm.”

The Kings ended the trip, their longest in 18 years, with a 2-3-1-2 record. They’ve won only three of 11 games since Jason Allison was sidelined but reached their objective by going 5-5-2-3 over their last 15 games.

At 8-6-3-3 overall, with no trips of longer than two games forthcoming until late February, they’re two games above .500, as they were a month ago.

“I felt that if we could get through this trip and have our heads above water and be around that .500 mark, we would take that,” Coach Andy Murray said. “Look at what our team has battled through. I’m proud of our effort on this road trip and what we’ve done.”

Brad Norton, who might not have been playing if Adam Deadmarsh hadn’t been sidelined because of a concussion, gave the Kings an early lead when he scored his first NHL goal on a shot from the top of the slot.

The Blues outshot the Kings through the first two periods, but only by 13-9. Then came the third period and their all-out blitz.

Eric Boguniecki scored on a rebound at 4:12, tying the score.

But the Kings, who play five of their next six games at Staples Center, took the lead again with 4:15 to play, defenseman Jaroslav Modry scoring his eighth goal in 11 games off a pass from Erik Rasmussen.