ST. LOUIS – There was a buzz in the building for the St. Louis Blues, with Hall of Famers in attendance, including Curtis Joseph, Wayne Babych and the family of former assistant coach Jimmy Roberts. Failure to start a game on time again; missed Grade A scoring chances; penalty kill scored on for fourth straight game, in similar fashion Joseph, who tended the net with the Blues from 1989-95, and Babych, a forward who was the first 50-goal scorer in Blues history playing in St. Louis from 1978-84, came inside the locker room and reading off the starting lineup pregame, there should have been amped up energy against a tired Dallas Stars, who played the previous night. But once again, another slow start against another perennial power in the Western Conference put the Blues behind the Eight-ball and Dallas locked down a 2-0 win against the Blues on Saturday at Enterprise Center. The Blues (23-23-4) started off even slower on Thursday in a 4-2 loss against the Vegas Golden Knights, who the Stars (31-17-1) beat 4-3 on Friday in a very emotional game. But the Blues didn’t learn their lesson yet again against a team that if you give them an inch, they’ll squeeze the life out of you. And despite a 33-19 edge in shots on goal, along with multiple missed backdoor tap-ins, posts and empty cages the Blues couldn’t find, they never solved Stars backup Casey DeSmith and were shut out for the first time since March 30, 2024, 4-0 against the San Jose Sharks. But the Blues were down 2-0 midway through the first period before trying to make desperate pushes in the final 40 minutes. “We’re going to start doing things differently,” Blues coach Jim Montgomery said. “We have to because we had a great crowd tonight. Our fans were ready to rock. We were honoring Bruce Affleck, Jimmy Roberts, Wayne Babych and ‘Cujo.’ They both came in and did the starting lineup. I thought we were going to have a great start and didn’t materialize. “Maybe we do morning skates at Centene. We’ve got to disrupt the rhythm somehow so that we have a little more urgency. “They did a pretty good job of locking it down. Their habits and details defensively. Offensively obviously. They’re a good hockey team.” Let’s look at Saturday’s Three Takeaways: * Another slow start – The Blues were down a goal just 19 seconds into Thursday’s game. OK, those things happen. But it’s happened multiple times with this particular group, and it happened again on Saturday. Montgomery called a timeout after Evgenii Dadonov made it 1-0 7:07 into the game, and it’s puzzling how this puck got through and by Brayden Schenn and Colton Parayko into Dadonov’s path, and the Stars forward was able to slide the puck through Jordan Binnington for a 1-0 Dallas lead: Montgomery called a timeout and lit into his side with a reset. “That’s exactly what it was,” Montgomery said. “I didn’t think we were playing with the required amount of desire and passion that we should be showing at this time of year especially.” The question is: how can that be possible for a team that believes it can make the playoffs? And then captain Brayden Schenn comes up with this: “I think it just becomes individually having yourself ready to play, especially this time of the year,” Schenn said. “Points are crucial, playing at home. “At the end of the day, no excuse not being ready to play, especially against good hockey teams. That’s the lesson we have to learn. You have to have yourself ready to play and when that happens, the team goes.” * Not bearing down on quality scoring chances – The list is a long one. Mathieu Joseph two backdoor plays, one in the third period looked like an easy tap-in from Robert Thomas off the post; Thomas has one carom into the crease that lay there until it was cleared; Brandon Saad in alone couldn’t find the mark; Jordan Kyrou stopped at point blank range; Philip Broberg clanking the post in the third period coming down the slot; Schenn whiffing on a Grade A chance above the hash marks in the high slot. All opportunities against DeSmith that weren’t converted. “We really didn’t show good finish,” Montgomery said. “I think we whiffed on maybe five shots tonight, but execution-wise, we weren’t screening the goalie well enough. We were off to the side. We weren’t fighting through checks because we had a lot of point shots, especially in the second where you’d like to take away his eyes to create either goals, tips or rebound goals.” DeSmith even admitted he was fortunate. “I had some fortunate bounces, a couple posts,” DeSmith said of his second shutout of the season, 12th of his NHL career. “They missed a couple big chances when the net was pretty empty.” * Penalty kill can’t get job done – Esa Lindell – yes! Esa Lindell – the guy who doesn’t play power play for the Stars, scored a man-advantage goal that made it 2-0 at 9:36 in similar fashion that has plagued the Blues multiple times this season, including Thursday when Pavel Dorofeyev scored in similar fashion. The Stars go high to low, where Roope Hintz was on the goal line, goes cross-crease to Lindell in the right circle for the one-timer by Binnington: When Dorofeyev scored on a one-timer also on Monday, but this time it was a 6-on-5 situation, it marks the third game in a row where the Blues leave a shooter wide open in the circle, over-committing to one side of the ice. “If we play our system, that play’s not there,” defenseman Ryan Suter said. “I think it’s all four guys when you’re killing have to be on the same page. I thought we had some good meetings and after that goal, I thought we (bore) down and killed the way we were supposed to.” It marked the fourth straight game the Blues penalty, which was 2-for-3, kill has allowed a goal though. “It’s just unfortunate for sure that we’ve given up so many PK goals against,” Suter said of the 28th-ranked PK at 73 percent. “We’ve got to be better, all of us. We will be better.” Image [https://thehockeynews.com/.image/c_fit,h_600,w_600/MjA5MjcwNjk1MDQ0MDY0NDYy/subscribe2024-front-banner.jpg]
