ST. LOUIS – It’s only one game, right? That’s the message coming from the St. Louis Blues [http://thn.com/stlouis] locker room after a disheartening 5-0 loss to the Minnesota Wild [http://thn.com/minnesota] in the season-opener for both teams at Enterprise Center on Thursday. The Blues delivered a stinker of a result after lots of preseason hype of building off of how the team finished in the second half of last season and into the playoffs before falling to the Winnipeg Jets in seven games in the first round. Minnesota’s top line of Matt Boldy, Marco Rossi and Kirill Kaprizov, who on Sept. 30 signed the richest contract in NHL history (eight years, $136 million; $17 million average annual value), combined for eight points (two goals, six assists) and Filip Gustavsson stopped all 26 shots the Blues threw at him, including the first 14 in the second period. Jordan Binnington did not have a good night, allowing five goals on 21 shots. Here are tonight’s observations: * This game was decided at the net front – Blues coach Jim Montgomery hit the nail on the head when he talked about the net front presence at both ends of the ice. The Wild were on top of it from their end; the Blues were not. Four of five Minnesota goals came as a result of being at the net, whether it be a rebound, a loose puck or just being in the right place at the right time. “I think our habits, special teams, our battle level on 1-on-1 battles wasn’t at the level that we expect,” Montgomery said. “And then I think the biggest difference was the battle at the net front. There’s a process that we believe in and a lot of those details and habits within our process cost us tonight.” Ryan Hartman, who scored twice, scored the first goal after getting a puck by Dylan Holloway’s stick check, then being at the net after Logan Mailloux, making his Blues debut, couldn’t get enough of the puck sliding trying to sweep it away at 15:54 of the first period: Then Boldy was parked in front of Binnington and to redirect a Kaprizov pass off the boards at 17:30 of the first for a 2-0 Wild lead, which was a defensive breakdown and missed assignment of another guy in tight: Minnesota’s third goal, a power-play marker scored by Joel Eriksson Ek, at 12:27 of the second made it 3-0 and came on the Wild’s first shot of the period after the Blues put up the first 14. But it was another case of funneling a puck to the net and Eriksson Ek being in the right place in tight: And on Rossi’s goal that made it 5-0 at 7:27 of the third period, another case of funneling a puck to the net and driving the goal to collect the rebound in the crease: “I thought through the first two (periods) we did some good things and there's some things that we need to clean up,” Blues captain Brayden Schenn said. “… Defensively, got to work on closing plays a little bit faster. We did some good things tonight, but there's a whole lot we can clean up and grow and get better.” At the other end, Gustavsson was seeing the puck because the Blues just simply didn’t get enough bodies to the net. The goalie’s eyes were clear as day at that end of the ice far too often throughout the game. “Offensively we've got to get harder in front of the opposition's goalie, that's for sure,” Schenn said. “Nothing against them, but I think we just weren't hard enough there ... willingness to go there and make it hard on Gustavsson. We had some looks, but they weren't second and third opportunities and chaos around the net. That's obviously something we've got to focus on here moving onto the next game.” * Logan Mailloux had a rough first Blues game – Needless to say, it wasn’t the greatest of debuts for Mailloux, playing his first game after being acquired from the Montreal Canadiens on July 1 for Zack Bolduc. He played 14:12 and was a minus-2 in the game. The 22-year-old looked jittery when the puck was near him, fumbling it, not playing it cleanly throughout the game. The first Hartman goal started as a result of Mailloux misfiring a batted puck out of the zone that led to the sequence for the goal in which he tried to atone himself with a sliding play but not getting enough of the puck. The Rossi goal also started with a defensive play in which Mailloux’s pass to partner Tyler Tucker was off the mark. This is a process, and there are going to be nights where it doesn’t go right and the teaching moments will be there. You have to remember, this was Mailloux’s ninth NHL game, and there’s a long-term plan here, and judging someone’s play by just one game. It wasn’t the kind of game Mailloux had hoped or envisioned, but there are certainly some teaching moments, that’s for sure. * Blues shot selection was not good enough when game could have changed at start of second period – The Blues came out in the second period with a purpose. And that purpose was to try and re-grab the game. They had a firm grip on it until the two goals late in the first by the Wild. They grabbed it back by pumping the first 14 shots on goal in the second period and having a 22-7 edge on the shot clock. Unfortunately, the shot selection was not the idea to aim at the Wild logo, which the Blues were adept at doing. If that was the case, they win this game running away. But it also goes hand in hand with not taking the goalie’s eyes away. “Well one, we weren’t taking away his eyes, so even if you are shooting at the logo, which you are correct,” Montgomery said. “A lot hit the whatever animal that is. And I don’t have an answer. We have a lot of good players that score a lot of goals and for whatever reason, we weren’t on our mark tonight.” * Team play dipped – When the Blues were up 14-0 in shots in the second period, they had the territorial edge. But an untimely Schenn hooking penalty halted the momentum and 15 seconds later, Eriksson Ek made it 3-0 and instead of sticking with the process, the team’s play sagged instead. There was no cohesion, little urgency and the effort level as the game wore on dipped. And it reflected onto Binnington, who allowed a poor fourth goal to Hartman, who made a veteran move count by locking up Colton Parayko’s stick with his legs that was not called leading up to it: “It’s a long season. It’s a journey, it’s a grind,” Montgomery said. “You’re going to have nights where unfortunately the score ends up like tonight at times. I did think for the first two periods, until it went 3-0, I liked our game quite a bit. The execution of special teams and being at the net front I think is why they separated from us. I didn’t like our game after that. Once it went 3-0, I didn’t like the energy on our bench, I didn’t like the energy that we had on the ice and the game kind of got away from us in the third.” * Boobirds already? – The pregame hype was one thing. But that tone changed at the end of the second period when some boobirds could be heard, then they grew a bit louder at game’s end. For Game 1 of 82, that’s way too soon. “You obviously want to win the home opener in front of your fans,” Schenn said. “You know what, it's a long season. We can't dwell on one game. We have to turn the page and the best part about it is we have a game in a day and a half. We can go right back at it and make some adjustments and we know we can be better.”
