Losing to the San Jose Sharks on Thursday should have been motivation enough for the St. Louis Blues heading into their game against the Los Angeles Kings on Saturday.
It didn't get a whole lot better in a 5-1 loss at Crypto.com Arena on Saturday.
The Blues (8-7-1) were blitzed early and often, had to chase the game, showed some good flashes moving forward in the game but it was too little, too late.
Let's look at the three keys to this loss:
1. Slow start -- The Blues, at all costs, needed to start better than they did Thursday at San Jose, when they were being outshot 11-1 and outscored 1-0 against the lowly Sharks.
The Kings are that much better, so the fact that's the case should have gotten the Blues' attention.
It didn't. Not even close.
The Blues had their wakeup call after 20 minutes Thursday but sank deeper into a hole with a poor start to the second period allowing four goals.
On Saturday, it was the opening 20 minutes. They allowed two goals in 19 seconds early and were down 4-0 after 20 minutes and were in chase mode again.
2. Goal scoring has dried up -- Remember when the Blues were scoring goals by the bushel?
You do? Well, it seems like so long ago when the Blues were winning their third straight game on Tuesday in a 5-0 win against the Tampa Bay Lightning, ending a stretch of six games in which they scored 27 goals, or 4.5 goals per game.
In two games on the west coast, the Blues have scored a grand total of two goals on 75 shots and 149 attempts.
Those goals have come from Pavel Buchnevich on Thursday, in the third period when the game was already out of hand at 5-0, and Jake Neighbours on Saturday when -- again -- the game was out of hand in the third period, down 5-0.
There have been good scoring opportunities, something that's encouraging. One might be more discouraged if they're not getting those opportunities to score, but at some point again, shots have to find their way to the back of the net, and for the second straight game, the goalie outplayed the Blues' skaters.
3. Failed special teams -- We've been down this road far too often when special teams can make a difference for the Blues.
They could have made a difference Saturday when this game was ultimately decided, and they failed miserably again.
The power-play was another disaster, going 0-for-3 and allowing a shorthanded goal, and the penalty kill, which actually was really good on the road this season (19-for-20, which was No. 1 in the league), needed a kill early in the first but succumbed and allowed a power-play goal.
So for the season now, the power play is last in the league again at 6.5 percent (3-for-46!!!) and the penalty kill is 22nd at 75.6 percent. Each is simply not good enough.
