Striker St. Louis Blues Dylan Holloway left Tuesday night’s contest against the Tampa Bay Lightning and left the rink on a stretcher after being hit by a puck late in the first period.

Holloway was hit in the neck by a puck with 2:37 left in the period and proceeded to finish his shift, continuing to participate in the game before skating to the bench under his own power.

As the game was stopped with 1:11 remaining for a penalty that was later overturned, teammates began calling and gesturing for help.

Blues coach Ray Barile and medical staff from both teams tended to Holloway for several minutes before emergency medical technicians took him off the bench on a stretcher.

“I was sitting next to him and I saw something happen,” said Blues forward Alexey Toropchenko. “I told Ray. He knows what he’s doing. I was just kind of curious as to what was going on. The doctors came and I think everything is fine now. But we were worried, all of us.”

Holloway was seen raising his arm as he was carried away. The Blues later announced that Holloway was alert and stable and was being taken to a hospital in the St. Louis for further comments.

“I think the only way I can put it is if you’re at work and you get a call and one of your family members is sick and you rush to the hospital,” Blues coach Drew Bannister said. “Holly is a member of the family. That was hard. I thought we as a group showed a lot of strength and how mentally you could get through it, because the easiest thing to do is to turn your head away. But we were able to get updates on Holly and calm down a bit and refocus.”

Referees Wes McCauley and Cody Beach sent the teams to the locker room and began the first halftime after Holloway was carted off the bench due to the nature of the injury.

“It’s tough,” Blues captain Brayden Schenn said. “He’s your teammate. Then we got word that he was going to be okay. And then, you have to wrap your head around it a little bit and go play a game of hockey again, right? So that’s unfortunately the reality of the sport and it took us a while to get going.”

St. Louis scored three goals after falling behind 1-0 early in the second period to beat Tampa Bay 3-2.