BOSTON — The Blues made history Monday night, but not the kind you want to make. In losing 3-1 to the Boston Bruins at TD Garden, they tied the franchise record for consecutive losses in regulation time — seven.
They haven’t won a hockey game since Oct. 22, a 2-0 victory in Edmonton. That seems like a long time ago. Not even the return of Brandon Saad, giving the Blues a full roster for the first time since opening night, could help.
The Blues went 3-0-0 before Saad left the lineup because of an upper-body injury. Again, that seems like a long time ago.
Three previous Blues teams lost seven straight in regulation, most recently the 2005-06 squad. The Blues get another chance to snap out of their funk Tuesday in Philadelphia, completing a back-to-back run.
Special teams let the Blues down in this one. Boston scored twice on the power play, including Patrice Bergeron’s game-winner with 7:15 left to snap a 1-1 tie. Then St. Louisan Trent Frederic — who grew up rooting for the Blues — applied the dagger with an even-strength goal with 3:32 to play.
Not so special
The Blues had three power plays in the first 11 minutes and got pretty much nothing going on any of them. They had two shots from distance on the first of them, an interference call against Mike Reilly drawn by Brayden Schenn.
On the second power play, a tripping call against Matt Grzelcyk drawn by Ivan Barbashev, Boston might have possessed the puck longer than did the Blues. The Bruins’ penalty-killing unit had the only shot on goal on this one — that’s not supposed to happen, is it?
On the third power play, when Tomas Nosek was called for tripping Schenn, Jordan Kyrou had a close-in shot turned away by Boston goalie Linus Ullmark. In effect, Kyrou was in too tight to get much of a shot off.
Twenty-eight seconds after the end of the Nosek penalty, Blues defenseman Niko Mikkola got two minutes for interference. It took Boston only 17 seconds to score on its power play, with Jake DeBrusk — left alone in the near slot — scoring to make it 1-0 on a feed from David Pastrnak at the 13:34 mark of the first.
So special teams were the story of the first period. Boston entered the game with the league’s top penalty-killing unit at 92.9% — and it showed.
For the Blues PK unit, it started the season killing off 11 consecutive power plays but have since gone only five for 11.
Flashback to better times
For much of the opening period, and much of the their losing streak, the Blues have played safe, tentative, unsure-of-themselves styles. But as the second period got going, the Blues seemed to relax and just played hockey.
They carried the play to the Bruins over the first half of the period, controlling the possession time. And finally it happened. Defenseman Torey Krug, a former Bruin, skated into the offensive zone and sent a cross-ice pass to Kyrou, who quickly went cross-ice the other way to Schenn, who banged in his third goal of the season to make it a 1-1 game with 8:23 left in the period.
It was Kyrou’s first assist of the season. Schenn, Kyrou and Jake Neighbours played together on the third line Monday, and had several good moments.
Second periods have been the Blues’ bugaboo this season (they were outscored 18-6 in the second entering Monday’s game, for a minus-12 differential that is second-worst in the league). But they held their own in the second on Monday, even though Boston started to come on as the period wound down.
Included there was a shot from Krejci that rang loudly off the post and kicked back toward goalie Jordan Binnington late in the period.
Hanging on
The Bruins kept that momentum going in the third period. They were in the Blues’ zone continuously — it almost looked like a long power play, except it wasn’t.
Oh, the Blues were working hard but the Bruins were getting to most of the pucks. And then the Blues did commit a penalty when Ryan O’Reilly — annually one of the least-penalized players in the entire NHL — was sent off for tripping Pastrnak with 8:28 to play.
The Bruins got all kinds of shots off on Binnington with the man advantage, and finally, with 7:15 left to play, Patrice Bergeron was left alone in the slot and banged one home high and stickside to make it a 2-1 game.
