ST. LOUIS — The Blues’ offense has lacked stability in the opening moments of the season. Ryan O’Reilly missed four games because of COVID-19. Brandon Saad did too. Brayden Schenn missed his third game on Thursday with an upper-body injury that is likely a hand or a wrist. Pavel Buchnevich missed two games because of a suspension, and most of a third. Torey Krug may be a defenseman but he also quarterbacks the power play.
So it’s no surprise that the Blues’ offense has lacked consistency in that window. In the five games leading into the Blues’ early-season showdown with a revived Nashville team, they had scored no more than two goals in four of the previous five games.
The Blues got to three goals in regulation on Thursday, two by Jordan Kyrou and one by Vladimir Tarasenko, to send the game into overtime, the second game in a row and the third time in the past five that 60 minutes couldn’t settle matters. Nashville’s Matt Duchene scored 2:01 into the extra period to give Nashville a 4-3 win and continue a Blues’ streak of alternating wins and losses that has now hit eight games.
Nashville broke a 2-2 tie early in the third period. Marco Scandella, who was on the puck for Nashville’s’ first three goals, put a clearance right on the stick of Mikael Granlund in the neutral zone and soon it was Granlund feeding Mathieu Olivier feeding Yakov Trenin, who beat Jordan Binnington on his stick side.
At that point, in this game and the two before it, the Blues had been outscored 9-1 in the second and third periods, but they managed to get even on Tarasenko’s goal. He drove to the net on the left side and, with three Predators around him, threaded a hole above goalie David Rittich’s pads and below his blocker for his fifth goal of the season and his first since Oct. 28. It was the first goal by a Blue other than Kyrou in over 95 minutes.
Kyrou got his first goal of the game with 7:37 to go in the first. Calle Rosen, whose days are numbered with the Blues as Torey Krug and Niko Mikkola close in on coming back from the COVID-19 protocol list, took a shot from the point that was blocked by Nashville’s Philip Tomasino in front of the net. Tyler Bozak controlled the puck and quickly slipped it to Kyrou, who postage stamped it in the top right corner to make it 1-0.
He got his second on a power play. The Blues picked up the man advantage when Predators captain Roman Josi knocked a puck out of the air and over the glass for a delay of game penalty that was so obvious it required no conferring among the officials.
Robert Thomas had the puck deep in the Nashville zone and passed it out to the blueline to Colton Parayko, who has moved onto the second unit while Krug is out. Parayko faked a shot and moved the puck to Kyrou on the wing and he again put in the top right corner.
Kyrou scored two goals in the second game of the season at Arizona, and then went quiet until Tuesday in Winnipeg, when he ended a run of eight games without a goal and also assisted on a goal by Pavel Buchnevich, earning them a spot together on Thursday, on a line with Bozak.
The goals came against Nashville goalie David Rittich, playing his first game of the season
The first period also included a fight between Dakota Joshua, in his first game back in the NHL as he replaced Jake Neighbours on the roster. After a faceoff near the Nashville goal, Joshua dropped his gloves and went at it with the Predators’ Michael McCarron. It was the third fight of the season for the Blues but the first that didn’t involve Colorado’s Nazem Kadri.
The second period swung the other way. Nashville got a goal back 17 seconds into the second period when Matt Duchene had too much time to himself in the slot and beat Binnington to his glove side. Luke Kunin got an assist on the play.
Kunin, who played for the Junior Blues growing up, tied the game with 12:17 to go in the second. Duchene backhanded a pass to Kunin, who was skating in along the goal line and he backhanded the shot between Binnington’s pads to make it 2-2. It was the first goal for Kunin against the Blues, coming in his fifth game against them. The first four came when he was with Minnesota, which traded him to Nashville prior to the 2020-21 season, during which the Blues and Predators didn’t meet.
The Predators lost McCarron early in the third period when he collided with a teammate after blocking a shot. He stayed down on the ice until the play was whistled dead and then was helped very, very slowly to the dressing room.
