ST. LOUIS (AP) -Ben Bishop was having the time of his life for his hometown St. Louis Blues before he felt something strange in the third period.
The St. Louis native made 12 saves before leaving with an undisclosed lower-body injury in the Blues' 4-0 victory over the Florida Panthers Saturday night.
Bishop left the game with 15:27 to play.
"I was going to make one of the saves and something (wasn't right) in my lower body," Bishop said. "It's sad. I felt really good. It's unfortunate."
The former Maine star was replaced by Marek Schwarz, recalled Saturday from Peoria of the AHL after starter Manny Legace strained a hip flexor against Los Angeles on Friday night, and regular backup Chris Mason had an appendectomy last week.
Brad Boyes scored two goals, Paul Kariya had a goal and an assist, Keith Tkachuk also scored and added an assist and Andy McDonald collected three assists to help the Blues snap a two-game losing streak and end Florida's two-game winning streak.
"Right off the bat, we got going," said Boyes, who scored his sixth and seventh goals of the season. "I think the forecheck worked out well, we didn't turn pucks over, shot the puck, the power play got us going good. I think every part of our game was much better than it was last night."
The Blues, who came into the game with a NHL-best 35.5 percent power-play mark, snapped a 2-for-13 slide by scoring on their first two-power play chances. They finished 2-for-7 on the night.
"Full marks to St. Louis," Panthers coach Peter DeBoer said. "They got beat last night at home and we knew we'd see their best game and they took it to us."
The Panthers finished a stretch where they played in Ottawa on Wednesday night, flew home for a game with San Jose on Friday night, then boarded a flight for St. Louis and didn't get in until 2:30 a.m.
"The disappointing part for me is we're on the end of a trip and maybe we didn't have great legs," DeBoer said. "But we've got to figure out how to hang around in games like this even when we're not at out best."
Boyes scored the Blues' first power play goal, his sixth of the season, on a nifty backhand through-the-legs pass from Tkachuk at 15:25 of the opening period.
Tkachuk scored another power-play goal, pouncing on Kariya' slap shot from the left point that squirted through Anderson's pads at 13:56 of the second for a 3-0 lead. It was Tkachuk's NHL-tying eighth goal of the season - seven of which have come on the power play.
The Blues maintained their 2-0 lead after killing off a 5-on-3 Florida power play for a full minute.
The Blues outshot the Panthers 31-17 in the game, a night after being outshot 28-15 by the Kings.
"The difference to me was our level of determination," Blues coach Andy Murray said. "We gave up 17 shots in the game and Florida's been averaging 32.3 shots per game, one of the higher totals in the league."
Notes: The Blues recalled Schwarz after Legace's bizarre injury in which he hurt himself stepping onto the carpet used for Alaska governor Sarah Palin, who was on hand Friday to drop the ceremonial puck. A team spokesman said Legace is listed as day-to-day. ... Blues F David Perron returned to the lineup after being a healthy scratch Friday. They also assigned D Jonus Junland to Peoria. ... The Panthers recalled D Jason Garrison on Saturday from Rochester of the AHL. D Cory Murphy injured his shoulder Friday night against San Jose. F Stephen Weiss sat out the game with an injured groin. Also, D Bryan Allen will have knee surgery Monday and will be sidelined indefinitely.
