Let's just get it out of the way now: a team that's as inconsistent as the St. Louis Blues, winning three in a row is like climbing Mount Everest. Opportunities may on the odd occasion present itself, and they may do it at some point, but on majority of occasions -- forget about it.
For the fourth time this season, a three-game winning streak presented itself, and the Blues are now 0-for-4, and they've been outplayed badly each time.
The Chicago Blackhawks did it to them again in this situation, and they did it in convincing fashion, running away with a 7-3 win at United Center in Chicago on Wednesday.
Otto Stenberg scored his first NHL goal, Tyler Tucker scored his second goal this season -- both against the Blackhawks -- and Nathan Walker scored in his return after missing 16 games with an upper-body injury; Jordan Binnington allowed five or more goals in a start this season for the seventh time after facing 35 shots.
Thus, the Blues fell to 17-19-8.
Let's go into Wednesday's game observations:
* Congrats to Otto Stenberg -- On a night where the Blues don't deserve any praise, we will give this kid his due diligence.
Why? Because he continues to play his tail off, and the 20-year-old finally got rewarded with his first NHL goal, and at the time, it was a big one, when he tied the game 2-2 at 8:22 of the second period when he stole a puck on a pass into the skates of Landon Slaggert and beat Spencer Knight high to the short side:
Stenberg, who came in with five assists in nine games and was a team-leading plus-4 (make it plus-5 after another plus Wednesday), played 13:55 and tied with Jake Neighbours and Nathan Walker for the team lead with five hits.
That trip combined for 15 of the Blues' 25 hits, and seemed to be the only ones checking in this game, but that's a subject in a different spot, but I got to tell you, this kid is even better than I thought he could be and deserves to stay here when some more injured bodies start to filter back in. But the fact he can go back down without needing waivers is something that will play into this. If it's my call, he stays out. He's earned it.
* Special teams were terrible yet again -- It started with the first period when the Blues had three chances on the power play to take control of a game and say what you want about looking at the stat sheet at the end of the night, with six shots on the power play but none of them were ones that made a difference.
They continuously try to make the extra pass, and when they attempt to shoot the puck, it was always trying to get it to the bumper and that looks like a mess. Teams are sitting on it, baiting the Blues to try it. They have to be pining for the days of Ryan O'Reilly there, and for that matter, Zack Bolduc last year there. But the Blues finished 0-for-5 when there was the chance to make a statement there early.
Meanwhile, Chicago had just one power play in the first period, and guess what, the Blackhawks made good on it on a Nick Lardis one-timer from the right circle, at 9:26 that tied the game 1-1 and instead of grabbing the game by the throat when the Blues had two power plays to this point, including a 5-on-3 albeit for just 12 seconds, the game was on level ground, when it didn't have to be:
When they had decent looks, the net front presence was absent to clean up rebounds.
But the Blackhawks were a robust 3-for-4 on the power play, including a second one that gave them a 2-1 lead that referee Brandon Schrader completely messed up when he called Logan Mailloux for high-sticking Tyler Bertuzzi, when it was easily a friendly-fire stick from Andre Burakovsky that clipped his teammate. It's a horrendous call because Schrader was so close to the play, his face could have been right in there getting clipped itself, so the fact he couldn't get that one right was complete buffoonery, but in the flip side if you're the Blues: kill a penalty. They literally allowed Oliver Moore to stroll down the inner lefthand slot and get off a clean shot:
But the fact is this: the Blues were 0-for-5 with six shots, the Blackhawks were 3-for-4 with 10 shots. It's the same old, same old for a special teams that have been in the bottom third in the league four straight years running now.
Something's got to give sooner rather than later.
* Second period ugly (again) -- They came in with the worst goal differential in the NHL (minus-39) and finished the game at minus-43, but the second period is a great contributor of that, and getting outscored 4-1 to give them a grand total of minus-23 (59-26) in the middle frame, and the play is usually as bad as the numbers indicate.
If the pizza that Oskar Sundqvist didn't serve up to Connor Murphy -- Connor Murphy, who scores about as often as I do -- clapped one through Binnington (needed a save there) to make it 3-2 at 8:57, or 35 seconds after the euphoria of Stenberg's goal:
It's the age-old question of, 'How does that happen in Game No. 44?' Blatant, glaring mistakes like that? And it just opened the floodgates up, because on the 4-2 goal at 12:27, courtesy of Slaggert, it was a puck worked into the Blues' zone, and around to the point, a clapper from Colton Dach gets tipped in the slot. Brayden Schenn is there but doesn't tie the man up enough:
And then the 5-2 goal, courtesy of Jason Dickinson at 17:24, the Blackhawks win a wall battle (what else is new?) and work it back to the right point, where a shot is thrown to the slot and Dickinson is there to get a tip. Tucker did little to protect the slot and tried to take away Dickinson well after the puck was already gone:
But it's a case of this team, when they start to make positive motion in the right direction in the small details like wall battles, protecting the slot areas, they regress and when they do, they fall fast. When it comes to wall battles and net front protection, this team has not been good in those areas for large swaths of the season, and the results show.
* Three straight wins is like a plague -- They were the last team in the league last season to win three in a row, and more than halfway through the season, it looks like a disease for the Blues once again.
It's the fourth time they've gone for a three-game winning streak, and they've fallen flat on their faces each and every time.
The Blues have now been outscored 24-9 in games where they're going for three wins in a row, and the games are brutally bad.
They lost to the Blackhawks 8-3 on home ice on October 15 after winning two in a row; 4-1 to the Anaheim Ducks on Dec. 1; 5-2 to the Boston Bruins on Dec. 9 and on Wednesday.
This group just seems allergic to stringing together wins and they want to leave little doubt.
* Keep losing by three or more goals -- You want to know how having the worst goal differential in the league belongs to them? Well, Wednesday marked the 15th time in 19 regulation losses the Blues have lost by three or more goals, and six of those losses have been by four goals or more.
That's a problem.
I don't think we need to elaborate on this subject any more.
* Where are the Blues' top players? -- Coming off a three-day break, the longest they'll have leading into the Winter Olympics break, two straight wins. One would think the Blues have plenty in the tank to get revved up again.
And that means the top players on this team, and Chicago missing two of its top young players in Connor Bedard and Frank Nazar.
That means Robert Thomas (one shot on goal in 17:08), that means Jordan Kyrou (four shots, one assist in six games since returning from a lower-body injury in 16:14), that means Pavel Buchnevich (four shots, no points in 17:18). Yes, we're singling out the three highest-paid forwards who are paid to produce that once again looked non-existent despite playing.
Meanwhile, the Blackhawks were getting two points each from Murphy, who came in with six assists in 42 games; Moore (one goal, one assist), Louis Crevier (one goal, one assist), Slaggert (one goal, one assist) and Matt Grzelcyk (two assists). That's three defensemen with two points each.
Secondary players are picking up the slack with Bedard and Nazar out of the lineup, and it's why Chicago has won four in a row.
Jimmy Snuggerud had 10 shot attempts for the Blues; Schenn had six; Justin Faulk had six; Philip Broberg had five; Tucker had four.
Broberg (one assist) is the only one of the top four defensemen to get a point for the Blues. We can cut Faulk some slack since he is still somehow leading the Blues with his 11 goals, but the bottom line is the top players were needed if this small amount of momentum was going to keep growing. And yet again, they come up empty.
Call it the story of the season.
Wednesday's goals came from Stenberg, Tucker's second of the season -- both against the Blackhawks this season, and it came 27 seconds into the game:
And from Walker, who scored in his first game since Dec. 1:
And the top players ... crickets.
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