ST. LOUIS -- When the play happened, it looked scary in the moment, but when Dylan Holloway finished his shift, nobody thought anything if it.

But as the St. Louis Blues forward approached the bench, he crouched his neck to the right, but nothing that would indicate something was wrong.

But that all changed when Blues head athletic trainer Ray Barile was working on Holloway, then keeping his head still in position.

All of the sudden, players from both the Blues and Tampa Bay Lightning were on the ice at Enterprise Center, and there was a hushed silence of 17,161.

Nobody really knew what was going on. The Blues did.

Holloway was in some distress with doctors attending to Holloway laying until a stretcher could be brought out.

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"I was sitting beside him and I saw something happening and I told (head athletic trainer) Ray [Barile]," said Blues forward Alexey Toropchenko, who scored in St. Louis' 3-2 win. "He knows what he's doing and I was just kind of curious what was going on and doctors came in and I think everything is good right now. We were worried, everybody, but we were told he's OK and it's good to hear."

Holloway was announced by the Blues and public address announcer Tom Calhoun informed those in attendance that Holloway was stable, alert and on the way to the hospital, with his parents, who were in town for the game.

But for a moment's time, it was scary.

Scary enough for Brayden Schenn and Oskar Sundqvist, who also scored, to have flashbacks to what happened to Jay Bouwmeester on Feb. 11, 2020 against the Anaheim Ducks:

"Those bench situations are not fun with obviously what I've been through with 'JayBo' and when everyone starts yelling and screaming," Schenn said. "You just really don't even know what's wrong. All in all, glad he's OK and we'll see what the update that comes in tomorrow."

"Definitely. You get very emotional as it happens," Sundqvist said. "Scary situation, but he was stable when he left and he's doing OK. You think about the guy's health when it happens. We're happy that he's OK."

Holloway was hit with a errant puck off the stick of Lightning's Nick Paul, after it caromed off Jordan Kyrou's stick, it hit Holloway on the right side of the face/neck area with 2:35 remaining in the first period. He would finish his shift and play was stopped with 1:11 remaining.

After Holloway was wheeled off on a stretcher, the officials decided to send the teams to their respective locker rooms ad finish out the first after the intermission.

"That was tough. The thing is, I didn't really see it, so it was hard to understand what was going on and you see all the St. Louis Blues players reacting," Lightning coach Jon Cooper said. "So when it went back on tape, it was a super scary situation.

"We talked about it in the locker room too, like we hope this kid is OK. It's obviously a lot bigger than the game. To hear the public address announcer say that he seemed to be doing better when he was going to the hospital, that made everybody, definitely on our bench, feel better."

Schenn was Holloway's linemate and thought nothing of it when his teammate finished his shift.

"I saw him get hit with the puck or whatever and then we did the 2-on-1 and then ... I don't know, when something like that happens, people just start yelling and screaming and you kind of go to the situation where it's at," Schenn said. "Thankfully we have Ray Barile and Dusty [Flynn] and Brendan [McClew] that stepped up and kind of a calming presence and did their job, waiting for the doctors to get in. Everyone did their job tonight and those situations, they're awful to be a part of, but when you have calming influences down to calm the situation down and guys that know what they're doing, it makes everyone feel a little bit better at the time.

"It's one of those things you don't want to be a part of. I've been through one of them and thankfully he's OK. I'm not the guy to give updates, but we know he's doing OK. Just a freaky accident, freaky thing that happened. Glad that we got good news and he'll be fine."

Sundqvist added, "Obviously. Scary, scary moment. Just glad we heard he's OK. Happy to hear that.

"As soon as we heard he was OK, we were talking in the locker room that we're all in the same boat emotionally right now and we've got a job to finish for him and to get two points. After the game, we can start shifting all our focus to him."

Blues coach Drew Bannister was, in the moment, focused on coaching the game and in a moment's notice, that is quite the shock.

"I think the only way I can put it toward you guys is if you're at work and you get a call and one of your family members is sick and rushed to the hospital. Holly's a family member," Bannister said. "That was tough. I thought we, as a group, showed a lot of fortitude in the way mentally being able to push through that because the easiest thing to do is your head goes somewhere else. We were able to get updates on Holly and kind of put our minds at ease a little bit and refocus ourselves.

"From what we heard, he's doing well. He's conscious and he's doing well, so it's a good sign."

It was a 0-0 game, each team had to refocus now on playing hockey, and the Lightning got to it quicker than the Blues did. Once they did, they wanted to win a game for their teammate.

"It's hard. Like, it's your teammate and then we got news that he's going to be fine and then you have to wrap your head around it a little bit and go play a hockey game again, right," Schenn said. "That's just unfortunately the reality of the sport and it took us a while to get going and then Nathan Walker went out there and had a heck of a shift, got us some momentum, energized us a little bit and then we kind of followed it up after that. I thought he had a great game tonight and then he got us going there in the second period."