Ever been hit with a Mike Tyson uncontested uppercut in his heyday? Hurts doesn't it?
It should. And that's how the St. Louis Blues should feel after an absolutely brutal loss on Wednesday against the Edmonton Oilers.
Playing a man short (only five defensemen) for the entire game, Connor McDavid, who had three assists, did return after missing eight games and factored in on the game-winning goal scored by Connor Brown with 20.7 seconds remaining in regulation, and the Blues suffered a brutal 4-3 loss at Rogers Place.
It was an absolute gut-punch for the Blues (43-30-7), who have lost two in a row for the first time since Jan. 27-31. And with the Calgary Flames blowing a late 3-1 third-period lead before falling to the Anaheim Ducks, 4-3 in overtime, the Blues' lead over the Flames is five points for the second wild card, and the Blues fell into that second wild card thanks to the Minnesota Wild outlasting the lowly San Jose Sharks, 8-7 in overtime and pulling even with the Blues but with a game in hand and owning the tiebreaker with 33 regulation wins to 31.
Pavel Buchnevich led the Blues offensively with a goal and two assists scoring in his fourth straight game and fifth in six; Robert Thomas had two assists to extend his point streak to 10 games (four goals, 18 assists), and Jordan Kyrou had a goal and an assist to account for all three Blues goals, and Jordan Binnington (19 saves) suffered his first loss the past eight starts.
Let's get into Wednesday's Three Takeaways:
* Too many mistakes by veterans again -- Winning 12 in a row can bring out the best in a team, and often when things are going right, it can mask over glaring errors.
Those errors reared their ugly heads in a 3-1 loss against the Winnipeg Jets on Monday, and they were made by veteran players.
Playing against an undermanned Oilers side without some of their best players due to injury and playing a defenseman short, the Blues had no excuses to come out and execute a plan of being relentless and tiring/wearing down an Oilers side there to be had.
Instead, more mistakes were magnified and proved to be significant.
Leading 1-0 in the second period on Ryan Suter's first goal since the second game of the season (Oct. 11 against the Sharks), the Blues limited Edmonton to five first-period shots. But two Justin Faulk mistakes led to Brown's first of the game that tied it 1-1 at 1:30 of the second period.
First, the Blues win the face-off, and Faulk tries a blind behind the back pass dangerously in his own zone, one where if you're trying that, you better make 1000 percent sure it gets there. Well, it got picked off and the initial shot hit the post. Faulk had a second opportunity with the puck on his stick but he tried to skate through the slot with it and McDavid poked it away wright to Brown, who buried the second chance. It's been happening too often for the veteran Faulk of late, whether it's a puck mistake or coverage error. But they've been costly and winding up in the Blues' net.
Then on Vasily Podkolzin's go-ahead goal at 12:39 of the second that made it 2-1, despite losing the D-zone draw, the Blues were able to recover the puck along the wall, and it was Buchnevich. Instead of simply trying to protect it, he shoveled it behind the net thinking Tyler Tucker would get it, but Tucker was flat-footed and the puck went astray in the corner where McDavid picked it up, got it to Darnell Nurse at the point and his shot lay in the crease for Podkolzin to backhand the rebound past Binnington.
On Edmonton's third goal that made it 3-2 at 1:41 of the third period, and it came after Kyrou tied the game 2-2 just 14 seconds into the third, Brayden Schenn was called for a delayed penalty on McDavid, but the Blues were never able to whistle the play dead by retrieving the puck, so Edmonton had a 6-on-5 for over 40 seconds, and with the forwards collapsed to the tops of the circles instead of pressuring the points, a shot from distance was able to get through and another rebound was hammered home by Viktor Arvidsson.
It was another case of poorly playing a 6-on-5 situation by veteran skaters not pressuring the puck to force a stoppage.
And on the Brown game-winner, this is a tough one, because the teams had just played 4-on-4 for 1:57, and Nathan Walker, who was serving a tripping minor he took three seconds before McDavid was called for interference on Thomas, was sprung for a semi-breakaway chance that was broken up by a diving Nurse. Could a trip have been called? Sure, but none was coming, so the Blues had the chance to ride out the clock effectively and at least getting a point. But Kyrou got worked over (rather easily) by Evan Bouchard with the puck along the O-zone boards and the Oilers were off the other way. When McDavid gets the puck in the neutral zone, he's already got a beat on Schenn along the edge. Fowler is tracking him from the blue line in, and the veteran defenseman, who had a solid game, seemed to have a beat on McDavid. But Schenn is still trying to chase down McDavid, which he never was going to do. Now Fowler is in a pickle. Does he skate and seal off McDavid low on the wall thinking Schenn would peel off and cover the slot or does he let Schenn chase McDavid and cover the slot area himself? He seemed to be caught in between, and when McDavid completely had Schenn beat, Fowler took the risk of challenging McDavid, who slid a puck to an open Brown in the slot. Schenn read the pass but was late in reacting and it was game over.
The Blues had one point secured and in a blink of an eye, none. And it was veteran players making crucial mistakes on all four goals. If you're going to be a playoff side, that's way too many.
* Net front presence sorely lacking, boxing out was poor -- This was a problem spot in the game.
On the offensive side, the Blues did not provide nearly enough traffic and challenges in front of Calvin Pickard. This wasn't Grant Fuhr or Andy Moog. It was Calvin Pickard, and the one time the Blues had a net front presence in front of the Oilers netminder, Buchnevich scored at 5:25 of the third period to tie the game 3-3. But it wasn't nearly enough.
And at the other end, You can't have Podkolzin just pitching a tent in front of the Blues' goal, and on Arvidsson's delayed penalty goal in the third period, if the Blues were going to pack the house and not give up the slot area in, you better have some bodies in the crease and low slot area to clear the net and they did neither, and the puck wound up in the net twice.
* Holloway's loss hurting more than Parayko -- Dare I say it: Dylan Holloway's loss for the offense has hurt -- in the grand scheme of things -- a lot more than the loss of Colton Parayko.
When Parayko went down on March 5, the Blues were able to offset his loss by each D-man picking up some of the slack.
Holloway has been out for three games now and you can already see offensively what it's doing.
When the 23-year-old was on the lineup, he was a steadying presence with Schenn and Kyrou, and it enabled Jake Neighbours to play with Buchnevich and Thomas, while Oskar Sundqavist, Zack Bolduc and either Mathieu Joseph or tonight, Dalibor Dvorsky could formulate the third line and Radek Faksa's line with Nathan Walker and Alexey Toropchenko could stay together as the grinding fourth line.
The lines were a constant, and the chemistry was quite clear. Coach Jim Montgomery was looking for some balance since Thomas's line was the only one producing offensively, and he flipped Bolduc and Walker, and to start the game, put Kyrou with Thomas and Buchnevich while sliding Jimmy Snuggerud down with Schenn and Neighbours.
With Thomas's line the only one going offensively, it seems the Blues are back to lacking the consistency throughout its lineup it exhibited throughout their franchise-record 12-game winning streak.
How much longer can they withstand the loss of Holloway, who left the lineup with 26 goals and 37 assists? It just seems like they've lost their balance and consistency since he departed.
* Hear what Montgomery, Thomas and Kyrou had to say after the game:
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