ST. LOUIS – Close, yet not close enough.
That’s sort of been the St. Louis Blues’ motto the past few games: right in the thick of it but in the end, the result has been consistent in a bad way.
The Blues dropped their fourth straight game, this time losing to the Los Angeles Kings, 5-4 in a shootout on a snowy Saturday at Enterprise Center in front of 6,848 people that braved the affects of a big winter storm that hit the area all day Saturday and into Sunday.
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The Blues (19-24-9), who fell to the Dallas Stars 3-2 on a last-minute goal in regulation by future Blue (wink, wink) Jason Robertson, have either played as the better team at even strength or battled back the past three games and conceivably could have won each of them, yet found a way to be on the wrong side of each.
“Back-to-back’s are always tough, especially with some travel,” said Blues forward Jordan Kyrou, who scored twice to give him seven points (three goals, four assists) the past seven games. “I thought we battled hard today, especially in the second (period) of that game. We kept bringing it back and I thought we had a good game.”
Dalibor Dvorsky also scored for the second straight game and had a beautiful shootout goal in the third round to extend the shootout, Brayden Schenn scored and Joel Hofer made 24 saves for the Blues, who saw their four-game home winning streak end.
“There’s some things defensively that we need to clean up again,” Blues coach Jim Montgomery said. “You can’t be happy any time you give up four goals.”
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Let’s take a look at the game observations:
* Slow start to the game – Not surprising, the Blues did not come out with the energy and jump early.
They were playing the second of back-to-back nights, the Kings (21-16-13) haven’t played since Tuesday and had fresh legs and showed it.
They scored early on Taylor Ward’s goal off a turnover 4:31 into the opening period and carried some of that momentum into the early stages of the second when Brian Dumoulin made it 2-0 at 1:11.
“I did not like our first 10 minutes of the game,” Montgomery said. “I thought they vastly started the game a lot better than we did. Their forwards were skating, we were getting caught from behind, we had too many turnovers at the red line and then I thought in the second period, we came out skating ourselves and we got a little more physical and we started winning more battles. You can say we were playing north really well.”
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* Pushback started late in first, carried into second period – Even though they gave up the early goal in the second, I thought the Blues finished the first strong after a lackluster beginning.
You can see they found their legs and it fueled a usually bad second period into a good one Saturday in which they scored three times in 5:56 to erase a two-goal deficit and lead 3-2.
“We found our legs a little more,” Kyrou said. “It was kind of a slow start and then we found it a little bit there at the end of the first and we just picked up from there and continued with that.”
Dvorsky, who scored in Dallas Friday, extended his point streak to three games when he finished off a beautiful passing play after initially winning a puck in the D-zone, then moving up in transition getting it from Mathieu Joseph, then worked a give-and-go with Otto Stenberg before a quick release from the slot beat Darcy Kuemper at 2:14 to make it a 2-1 game:
“Good play by the whole line on the goal today,” Dvorsky said. “‘Mojo’ carrying it out, Otto gave me a great pass. It’s always about the whole line, but yeah, I’m just trying to play with confidence every time I’m out there.”
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With Kevin Fiala in the box for tripping, the Blues’ power play scored for the third straight game and tied it 2-2 when Schenn finished off a back door play that was also beautifully set up with a zone entry by Pavel Buchnevich, Dvorsky’s little slip pass to Jimmy Snuggerud, who found Buchnevich low before he found Schenn on the right post at 6:30:
And Kyrou’s first of the game may have been the best executed goal of the night for the Blues when he made it 3-2 at 8:10 after starting with the puck in his zone, Cam Fowler’s stretch pass up ice to Logan Mailloux enabled the young defenseman to move it across the blue line and find Kyrou with speed, and he did the rest by freezing Kuemper and finishing off the wraparound:
“Great play by ‘Fowls’ to find ‘Maisy’ and then great vision from ‘Maisy’ to just kick it out to me there,” Kyrou said. “I kind of just used my speed and tried to make it happen as quick as I could.”
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* Tough sequences for Toropchenko – The usually reliable, hard-working Alexey Toropchenko found himself in a couple tough shifts that cost the Blues two goals.
It was his turnover on Ward’s goal when he took a second or two too long to move the outlet pass off the boards, and it got deflected enough and picked off at the blue line and back in:
And after your team builds some strong momentum and scores three times to take the lead for the first time, those next shifts are equally as important to solidify that momentum.
But Toropchenko had a chance to check Corey Perry off the puck behind the Blues’ net and didn’t, enabling the Kings veteran forward to wheel the puck back around to the left point, and when the puck was thrown back to Perry behind the net, Toropchenko was caught off position, not covering either Perry behind the net or Alex Laferriere at the opposite side, and when Perry went against the grain feeding Laferriere back behind the left post, Laferriere tied the game 3-3 at 10:18, or 2:04 after the Blues gained the lead stunting any momentum and allowing the Kings to push back:
* Controversy on fourth goal – Here’s where things really got quirky after the Kings grabbed a 4-3 lead when Trevor Moore poked a puck through Hofer at 11:34 of the third period, a rebound after he initially tipped on goal of Brandt Clarke’s right point shot (oh by the way, did anyone see Jake Neighbours deliver a knockout blow to Clarke in the first period?).
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The Blues immediately challenged for offside, and without looking at it, offside challenges are usually won by the challenging team; it’s rare that the goal is awarded because they’re so cut and dry:
Well, not in this case.
When officials quickly came back with the rendering that the play was onside, the goal stood.
The question at hand from the Blues was if Joel Armia was offside. The Blues felt like he was, at least according to their interpretation of Rule 83.1, which states:
A player is on-side when either of his skates are in contact with the blue line, or on his own side of the line, at the instant the puck completely crosses the leading edge of the blue line. For the purposes of this rule, a “skate” is to be considered the blade of the skate only. On his own side of the line shall be defined by a “plane” of the blue line which shall extend from the leading edge of the blue line upwards. If a player’s skate has yet to break the “plane” prior to the puck completely crossing the leading edge, he is deemed to be onside for the purpose of the off-side rule.
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Here’s Montgomery’s explanation on their thought process:
“They changed the wording of the rule book and I’ve got to get confirmation from the league,” Montgomery said. “But it reads both skates need to be on the neutral side of the blue line, so the leading edge, and we saw one on one. The year before, it did not say both skates needed to be, so we need to get clarification. I talked to the linesman, they were great. They explained it’s no doubt, in their mind, it’s one foot.”
Montgomery continued, “Lawyers write the books for rule books, and I don’t think like a lawyer. And obviously a lawyer would love facing me in court. But I talk hockey, and both skates to me means two. I thought (video coach) Elliott Mondou did a great job because the rule had changed. I was unaware of the wording change. So to us, if you change the wording, it’s because you want both skates versus one skate and we’ve just got to get clarification on that.”
Unless I’m missing something in the rule book, the above interpretation clearly states one skate has to be touching up the blue line, with control of the puck, and the league ruling was: Video review supported the call on the ice that Los Angeles’ Joel Armia had possession and control of the puck when entering the attacking zone and was on-side prior to Trevor Moore’s goal.
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* Hofer not at his best – Hofer has been solid for the Blues for the better part of nearly two months and the numbers back it up.
I didn’t think Saturday was one of his best.
Yes, he made a terrific save in overtime on Clarke that extended the game:
But it just felt like he was fighting the puck for good chunks of the game.
I initially thought he missed a cover on the Moore goal but replay showed Moore’s clever deflection initially enabled the puck to be freed up.
But it just didn’t feel like Hofer was as assertive as he’s been in recent past.
* Finally, a sixth-attacker plus – Blues fans have such a warm feeling when either Hofer or Jordan Binnington get pulled for an extra attacker. They know what usually happens next: an empty-net goal against.
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Not this time. This time, the Blues delivered, and Kyrou got it when he one-timed a rebound of Justin Faulk’s point shot from the left circle at 17:50 of the third that tied the game 4-4:
It was just the second time this season (Schenn vs. the New York Rangers on Nov. 24, 2025) the Blues scored with the goalie pulled while they’ve allowed 10.
“That was really good to see that execution,” Montgomery said. “The Schenn line went out right after the time out and there was 2:43 left. They got an icing, and there’s 2:06 left, and that’s good. The other team’s tired, they got 30 seconds there. ‘Buchy’ wins the draw, we go right to the spread there that we wanted to, and I love the play by Dvorsky. Dvorsky sends it in there, Kyrou’s on the backdoor, all the execution that we wanted to create a little bit of havoc and chaos at their net, and that happened, and then we got the loose puck, went up top and we brought it right back to the net, and we got that good rebound goal.”
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* Dvorsky nearly delivers – Montgomery mentioned it above, but Dvorsky nearly delivered a picture-perfect ending, not only for the team but also for himself.
The Blues did not have the puck for the first portion of overtime, but once they did, it was a chance to end it, but Kuemper just got a right toe on Dvorsky’s breakaway chance at 1:42.
“It would have been great if we won the game on Dvorsky’s breakaway (in overtime),” Montgomery said. “That would have really capped off a really solid hockey effort by our team.”
Dvorsky did extend the shootout with a really nice backhand goal to extend it to a fourth round.
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“I was kind of deciding between shot or doing that,” Dvorsky said. “I saw he was out pretty far so I deked it, went to backhand and happy that went in.”
* Shootout goes Kings’ way – Unfortunately for the Blues, they fell to 1-9 on the season in either overtime or a shootout (1-3 in shootouts).
Neighbours and Kyrou barely got any shots off, waiting too long to decide on what to do, and L.A., which has played the most overtime/shootout games (21) in the league this season, made good on goals from Adrian Kempe and Moore in the fourth round before Kuemper stopped Jimmy Snuggerud:
“The games are close,” Dvorsky said. “For sure, we just need to stay with it. For sure, it’s going to turn to our favor for sure. We’ve just got to keep grinding and keep doing the right things and keep playing our game.”
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* Shoutout to the brave fans – There were 6,848 of you that braved the weather and were in attendance, a number I thought was much higher than expected.
That’s roughly a third of building capacity but you were loud, you were enjoying yourselves and were treated to an entertaining game.
Of course, you were looking for a Blues victory but you got to see plenty of good, some not-so-good, and in the end, a chance to see a victory that fell just short.
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