ST. LOUIS -- The gauntlet month for the St. Louis Blues pushed forward with another game on Tuesday against the red-hot Florida Panthers.
And there were areas of the game in which the Blues could have made a difference, but instead, lack of execution in one area and a costly mistake on another led to a 5-1 Panthers win at Enterprise Center on Tuesday.
For the Blues (20-18-1), their seventh attempt at going four games over .500 went in vain, their power play once again could make a difference and failed and Jakub Vrana, oh boy, that gaffe was a doozy.
Let's jump into the three keys as to why the Blues were unable to sweep the Panthers this season:
1. Power-less power play -- Not only did the Blues go 0-for-4 again on a never-ending problem this season, including a four-minute one in the second period, but with the game on the line to begin the third period, they had virtually the entire man-advantage (1:49) of fresh ice down a goal (2-1) and did nothing with it.
Literally nothing.
Which begs the question of when will it make a difference in a game as opposed to constantly grasping for positives?
Sure, it's looked better of late, but the final product continues to sorely lack despite eight shots on goal.
"Yeah, it has to be a difference," Blues interim coach Drew Bannister said. "Good teams in this league are able to, whether it's separating games, whether it's to tie games up when they're down, they find ways to score goals, to give them energy on the bench. And not saying we're not getting any energy off our power play, but we have to get our power play in the right mindset that when they step on the ice, they're going to be difference makers for us. That's what we need from those guys. They are difference makers, they're our best players and they have to make a difference when they go on the ice."
On the four-minute high-sticking penalty on Sam Bennett in the second, Kasperi Kapanen did hit a post, Brayden Schenn had a great look from the slot that was saved, and Pavel Buchnevich had a mini 2-on-1 with Robert Thomas that he messed up not connecting the pass. Jordan Kyrou also hit the cross bar on one in the first, and Schenn had a backdoor chance.
"I had a chance there backdoor, Kyrou hit the cross bar," Schenn said. "I feel like the looks were there tonight. I think we'd like to have that one back in the third period. We had chances to score."
2. Vrana third-period turnover leads to 3-1 goal -- One would think that with what he's been through and to get back up to the NHL, Jakub Vrana would know better.
But it was his costly turnover that led to the first of Matthew Tkachuk's three third-period goals that made it a 3-1 game at 2:18.
Vrana tried to skate through Carter Verhaeghe instead of chipping a puck into the corner and go to work and it got picked off by Verhaeghe, who worked a give-and-go with Tkachuk for a one-timer past Joel Hofer from the right circle.
Bannister was none too pleased.
"It can't happen," Bannister said. "Time of the game, score of the game. Up to then, we had some some really good things below the tops of the circles, so why wouldn't we do that? Why wouldn't we put it back under where we can get back to work in the offensive zone?
"The turnover that led to the third goal was basically how it got away from us. We had full possession, we had speed, it was a forward that was backing up the 'D' and we try and make a play inside out instead of just driving it by or chipping it by him. We get ourselves in trouble and goes the other way and it ends up in the back of our net. From there, we weren't able to recover. Those are the things that we talk about that we have to manage the game better. We were in a good position at that point and we shot ourselves in the foot."
3. Can't seem to get four games over .500 -- No matter how many instances present themselves, no matter who the opponent is, the Blues just can't get over that three games over .500 hump.
It's the seventh time this season (8-5-1, 10-7-1, 11-8-1, 12-9-1, 13-10-1, 18-15-1 and Tuesday, 20-17-1) the Blues were three games over .500 with the chance to go four games over.
Coupled with the three instances from last season, that makes them 0-for-10 since the end of the 2021-22 season.
