One of the players the team wants to become one of those building blocks, Kasperi Kapanen, apparently is taking those words to heart.

After scoring an empty-net goal in Thursday’s 6-3 victory at San Jose, Kapanen scored a dramatic shorthanded goal to tie Saturday’s contest at Los Angeles 2-2 with just 7:49 to play.

It wasn’t enough to hold off the Kings (36-20-8), who took the lead on a Gabriel Villardi power play goal with 3:03 to play, and then added an empty-netter for a 4-2 victory at the venue now known as Crypto.com Arena.

But two goals in three games with his new team. That’s a pretty good start for Kapanen.

“He’s just like what I thought,” coach Craig Berube said. “He’s a smart player. He’s got good speed, makes some plays. But he’s got good awareness defensively. So far he’s played pretty good for us.

“That was a big goal he scored tonight, the shorthander, which is nice. He’s had some good scoring opportunities. Hopefully he gets a little confidence scoring that goal and can produce a little more for us.”

Kapanen, claimed off waivers from Pittsburgh a week ago, has had numerous chances since joining his new team. To the point where he could easily have four or five goals already.

“It feels good to have chances,” Kapanen said. “I feel like I’m shooting the puck a little bit more. Just in general I feel better out there, so hopefully there’ll be more goals to come.”

In his first media session in St. Louis last week, Kapanen said he wanted to be more aggressive about shooting the puck with his new team.

“Yeah, and just the mentality going into the game,” he said. “Not looking for that extra pass and just trying to shoot it as much as I can. And the guys have given me good plays and opportunities to shoot, so that’s what I just gotta keep doing in the future.”

With the Blues on the penalty kill following a tripping penalty on Jordan Kyrou, Brandon Saad came up with the puck along the wall and sprung Kapanen on a breakaway. The native of Kuopio, Finland, beat fellow countryman Joonas Korpisalo glove side for his ninth goal overall this season

“Saader made a good play on the wall, and I figured I had a step on the guy,” Kapanen said. “I feel like that’s kind of my go-to – the backhand/forehand. Obviously going against a familiar guy, Korpi in net, so wasn’t sure it was gonna go in. But luckily it did.”

Until now, Kapanen’s entire NHL career has been played in the Eastern Conference; Korpisalo came to the Kings on Wednesday from Columbus in the Jonathan Quick trade. So Kapanen’s seen him a few times.

“Yeah, in the East and just growing up together playing on the (Finland) national team,” Kapanen said. “So I’ve had plenty of practice against him. He’s a good goalie, so I figured I try it out and like I said I was happy it went.”

The Blues (27-30-5) got off to a slow start with LA taking a 1-0 lead on a Carl Grundstrom tip-in goal at the 3:14 mark. They were on their heels for a good chunk of the second period as well, being outshot 16-3 at one point in that period.

But this was a different kind of game compared to many during the team’s pre-trade deadline malaise. For the most part the ‘compete’ level was strong. There were stretches in the game where the Blues’ forecheck was very effective.

Nobody hates to lose more than Berube, but even he saw some positives.

“Yeah, we played well,” Berube said. “I thought a lot of guys played a solid hockey game, competed hard. It was a good game. Just late penalty and we didn’t kill it off. That’s the game.”

With 4:45 to play and the game tied 2-2, Josh Leivo went off for tripping Viktor Arvidsson. The Blues were 18 seconds away from killing off their 12th consecutive power play, when Villardi snuck behind Colton Parayko and a couple of other Blues to score, using some dazzling stick work to get Binnington off his feet.

“That’s obviously a high-end goal,” Justin Faulk said. “A real good play by them. I’m sure there’s something we’d want to take away from it from how he got open down there by himself.

“Binner played great. Again, we probably asked him to make too many great saves than we’d like. And that was an opportunity where he was put in a bad position by us. We can’t have guys kinda having all that time in front of the net.”

Earlier, Robert Thomas scored his 15th goal of the season off a rebound of a Pavel Buchnevich shot. That tied it at 1-1 in the first. But a Thomas turnover led to the second LA goal as the Kings regained the lead 2-1 in the second.

“I was trying to make a play when it wasn’t there,” Thomas said. “There’s a couple times we had some turnovers in the neutral zone that led to chances. But I think our forecheck was key and created a lot of chances for us.”

Thomas was trying to send a centering pass in the general direction of Kyrou when he got pinned against the boards by Vladislav Gavrikov. Quinton Byfield flipped a high pass down the ice to Adrian Kempe, who blew past defensemen Tyler Tucker for his team-leading 29th goal.

“He just got beat with the speed,” Berube said of Tucker. “Kempe’s fast and he just was a little late.”

But as Thomas mentioned, the Blues did have their chances, particularly on their first two power plays.

Not long after the first power play ended, Kyrou clanged one off the post and then off the skate of Korpisalo. The puck came to a full stop maybe a foot from the goal line. . .and just sat that. But a Kings player was able to clear out the puck before the Blues got there.

“We had a broken stick, a couple of rebounds sitting there that almost went in,” Thomas said. “The looks were there. We just gotta keep going at ‘em and some of them should go in.”