Trying to extend their road winning streak to a perfect six-pack, the St. Louis Blues came up with a thud on Tuesday.
There wasn't much to harp positively about from a 4-1 loss against the Toronto Maple Leafs, who were playing without three of their best players (more on that below) at Scotiabank Arena.
The Blues (28-22-2), who closed out a three-game road trip winning two of three, dropped just their second game in the past nine (7-2-0) but missed out on a golden chance to pass the Los Angeles Kings into the first wild card from the Western Conference (each is tied with 58 points).
Without much to say on a dud of a game, let's get right into the three keys why this one went south in a hurry:
1. Taking a depleted opponent lightly -- The Leafs knew they'd likely be without No. 1 defenseman Morgan Rielly, who received a five-game suspension for the cross-checking incident towards the end of a 5-3 loss against the Ottawa Senators and Ridly Greig on Saturday. But they were also left without two of their top forwards in captain John Tavares and Mitchell Marner, each who missed the game with illness.
I can't speak for the players in the room, but it sure looked like they thought they'd get an easy game without three of the Leafs' top five players and thought they'd get an easy night.
Well, it turned out to be an easy night -- for the Leafs.
For the players that stepped into the lineup, Bobby McMann being one of them, those are players who want to prove their value to the organization, and McMann, who came into the game with two goals in 37 games, scored his first NHL hat trick in a game-high six shots on goal.
The Blues seem to find themselves in these valuable-lesson kinds of games far too often.
2. No energy leads to bad decisions, execution -- Yes, the Blues played back-to-back games on Saturday and Sunday, and yes, they practiced on Monday. But they didn't have a morning skate and went more than 30 hours without being on the ice.
There just did not seem like there was much energy, if any at all, from the majority of the skaters, especially the top-end guys in the lineup.
It led to poor puck decisions, indecisiveness, lack of tape-to-tape plays, no shooting mentality and most importantly, a lack of winning puck races. When all that comes into play, there was no forecheck and the Blues were forced to defend most of the game, and they didn't do that very well as a five-man unit either.
3. A poor start -- As mentioned above, a lack of fire, especially to start this game, put the Blues behind the Eight-ball 2-0 and they were chasing most of the night.
The first goal came off a lack of clearance, then allowing McMann to come off the wall with the puck to the crease area to jam one in early, and although the second Toronto goal came off a fortuitous bounce for William Nylander, it came off a Jordan Kyrou offensive zone turnover that triggered the sequence.
The Blues were outshot 10-3 in the period and could have been down more than just two.
