With each passing loss for the St. Louis Blues, and each passing win for the Nashville Predators, who are now even with the Los Angeles Kings with 68 points, as the two wild card entries into the Western Conference, those Blues' slimmer and dimmer playoff hopes are flickering away.
Such was the case after a fifth loss in seven games, 4-2 against the Winnipeg Jets at Canada Life Centre on Tuesday.
The effort and execution wasn't as bad for the Blues (30-26-2) as it was on Saturday against the Detroit Red Wings, a 6-1 beating, but some glaring moments during games continue to wind up in the back of the Blues.
Joel Hofer, who was making his debut in his hometown as an NHLer for the first time, made 28 saves, and did make a number of key stops throughout the game, was victimized on three of the four goals against, and to a certain extend, was on the receiving end of poor puck management by his teammates on another goal that he'd like to probably have back in the end.
Pavel Buchnevich scored for the sixth time in six games, and Brandon Saad scored his fourth goal in six games, but it wasn't enough to keep the Blues from falling into a hole filling with quicksand fast.
Let's dive into the takeaways and break down some of the crucial moments throughout the game:
* First Period -- The Jets are a fast and heavy team, a good mixture of speed and skill with some big bodies, and they had a good portion of the territorial play early on.
Once again, the Blues didn't gain their first shot on goal until the 5:37 mark from Jordan Kyrou; they were down 3-0 in the game Saturday before registering their first shot more than eight minutes into the game Saturday by Colton Parayko.
Blues defenseman Nick Leddy left the ice and missed the majority of the first period after he took a deflected shot off the mouth from Jets forward Vladislav Namestnikov at the 4:41 mark.
Blues captain Brayden Schenn, who had some direct comments about the Blues' poor play Saturday, recognized this and saw an opportunity to try and jumpstart a flailing team and inject some life into it with a first-period fight against Jets captain and St. Louis-born Adam Lowry, who at 6-foot-5, 210 pounds, has quite the reach, four inches and 10-plus pounds advantage on Schenn, who held his own quite nicely, as a matter of fact at the 6:53 mark.
The fight only seemed to spark the Jets, who jumped ahead 1-0 when Sean Monahan's quick one-timer from the slot beat Hofer at 8:53 to make it 1-0.
Then at 10:20, Brenden Dillon beat Hofer from distance through traffic that made it 2-0. It came off a Mark Scheifele face-off win against Kevin Hayes to the point, and Dillon was able to beat a screened Hofer through two of Hofer's teammates, Jake Neighbours and Kasperi Kapanen.
It had the earmarks of another Saturday repeat, but Buchnevich scored 40 seconds later at 10:50 to make it 2-1 when he scooped in a rebound backhand at the net of a Marco Scandella shot from near the blue line beating Laurent Brossoit.
The Blues were back in the game, but a backbreaking down by Kyle Connor came at 15:33 that made it 3-1. It came as a result of Kapanen, who along with Hayes each was a minus-3 in the game, turned the puck over inside the Jets blue line instead of getting a puck deep, the Blues were changing their defensive players and as a result, Connor had free reign to get to the left circle and pump a shot through Hofer that he'd probably want back.
The first period ended with the Jets leading 3-1 and 13-12 in shots.
* Second Period -- Leddy was back for the period, which was good news for the Blues, who had a push.
But first, they had to kill a Torey Krug hooking penalty at 2:10, which they did, but not before Hofer made a solid left pad save on Nino Niederreiter from the slot at 4:23 to keep it a 3-1 game.
Then Brossoit came calling with a solid save of his own on Buchnevich's one-timer from the right circle off a feed from Jordan Kyrou in a 2-on-1 at 7:32.
The Blues got the big goal they were searching for when Saad potted home a shot from the slot area, a loose puck, at 9:03 to make it a 3-2 game after Schenn's forecheck and subsequent turnover by Jets defenseman Nate Schmidt. Schenn won the puck and threw it to the net where Neighbours was crashing, he got a shot away and Saad collected the loose change to finish.
Niederreiter was called for hooking and the Blues power play had a chance to tie, and despite four shots on goal, were not able to. But also, Hofer kept it a one-goal game when he bailed out Hayes from an egregious giveaway in his zone, and Hofer gloved Alex Iafallo's attempt from the slot at 15:08.
The Blues were able to get 15 shots in the period and led 27-26 after two but trailed by one with 20 minutes to go.
* Third Period -- They were looking for a push but had to go to the kill when Schenn tripped Mark Scheifele behind the Winnipeg goal 1:02 in but were able to get a kill with no shots surrendered.
It was Mason Appleton's turn to sit in the box when the Jets forward roughed up Scott Perunovich at 3:46, but the Blues' second power play went by with no key scoring opportunities.
The Jets did have one on a 2-on-1 but Lowry shot high after Morgan Barron blocked a Perunovich point chance.
Oskar Sundqvist was going to sit for two for interference at 6:04 to give the Jets their third power play, but Scheifele negated it with a unsportsmanlike conduct minor for throwing Sundqvist down.
The backbreaker goal for Winnipeg came at 10:13 when Iafallo scored his first goal in 21 games off a rebound to make it 4-2.
It started with a Buchnevich backhand giveaway in the neutral zone trying to hit Kyrou with a pass, and the Jets were putting it right back in the Blues' zone. With Perunovich having a beat on the puck, he was beaten to it by Monahan, who got it to Nikolaj Ehlers, and the Jets forward cut past Kyrou into the slot to get a shot off. Scandella, who saw what had happened, made a late decision to try and challenge the shooter while having Iafallo tied up in front. Perunovich was caught puck-watching and was late coming in to help and Iafallo was able to poke the puck past Hofer.
The Blues did pull Hofer with 3:49 remaining and had quite a bit of territorial play at 6-on-5 but could not get anything past Brossoit, who made eight saves after the Blues' goalie was pulled.
Jets defenseman Neal Pionk high-sticked Schenn with 40.5 remaining in the game, but the Blues' power play finished 0-for-3 with six shots. They outshot the Jets 38-32 for the game.
