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After Legace injury, Crombeen leads Blues against Kings

Dec 11, 2008 - 11:31 AM St. Louis (12-12-3) at Los Angeles (11-12-4) 10:30 p.m. EST

LOS ANGELES (Ticker) -- The St. Louis Blues may be without starting goaltender Manny Legace when they face the Los Angeles Kings on Thursday. Good thing they have B.J. Crombeen.

The 23-year-old right wing, Crombeen scored for the fifth time in three games and Brad Boyes added a power-play tally for the Blues on Wednesday, but it was not enough as the team's two-game winning streak came to an end with a 4-2 setback against the Anaheim Ducks.

After recording a hat trick in St. Louis' 6-3 win over the Nashville Predators on Monday, Crombeen opened the scoring against the Ducks with 7:31 left in the first period by firing a wrist shot from the right faceoff circle past goalie Jean-Sebastien Giguere.

Legace suffered an undisclosed injury moments before surrendering the game-tying goal by George Parros 56 seconds later. Legace stopped Bobby Ryan's initial shot from the right circle but appeared to injure his leg while scrambling to gain possession of the rebound, which Parros collected in front of the net and buried.

Ducks center Ryan Carter then skated across the crease while celebrating the tally and inadvertently collided with Legace's head.

Legace was helped off the ice in obvious pain and was replaced by Chris Mason, who turned aside 22 shots.

The Kings are coming off a 6-1 rout against the Colorado Avalanche on Tuesday, falling to 1-3-1 in their last five games following a pair of regulation victories.