ST. LOUIS — The Blues got a goal out of forward Robert Thomas, his first of the season, but then lost him for the rest of the game when he fell hard on his left hand as the Blues fell to Arizona, 2-1, on Saturday at Enterprise Center.
It's the first time the Blues have lost consecutive games this season. The teams will go at it for a fourth consecutive game on Monday.
The Coyotes, who will play six consecutive games against the Blues, lead the improvised series 2-1.
Coach Craig Berube did not have an update on Thomas' status after the game, though his postgame remarks sounded less than optimistic.
Thomas, off to a rough start to the season, scored 75 seconds after Jacob Chychrun had scored to put Arizona ahead first for the third time in three games. He had the puck at the goal line to goalie Darcy Kuemper's left. He tried two tough angle shots that Kuemper stopped before finding success on the third try and slipping it between his legs.
But 5 1/2 minutes later, Thomas was done for the day. He was tripped by Arizona's Nick Schmaltz along the boards and when he fell to the ice, his left hand and wrist drove hard into the ice. Thomas has had surgery on that wrist in the past. The Blues described it as an upper-body injury.
"He had a great shift there with Barbashev and Sundqvist," Berube said, "and yeah, it's unfortunate. I feel bad for Robert, really bad. He's had a tough start. I was convinced he was going to work his way out of it and now it's an injury ... it's unfortunate."
The Blues had gone with 11 forwards and seven defensemen in the game — Jake Walman was the extra defenseman and Kyle Clifford had come out — so they were down to 10 after that.
The Blues had 25 shots on goal, but few really good chances. In the second and third periods, they combined for just 14 shots on goal.
"I just think we're tight," Berube said. "It looks like we're going out and playing tight. It looks like we're just not playing with much confidence right now. And when you play like that, you don't feel good and it's hard to get going. It just looked like we lacked a little bit of energy and emotion in the game, and that can make the difference."
"The biggest thing," captain Ryan O'Reilly said, "we were fighting it. You can tell we weren’t clean, especially off the start, starting with myself a bit, little plays didn’t connect on, I think it got in our heads a bit, you can just tell we had the right intention, but it just wasn’t strong. I think we were kind of thinking a bit a little too much and not trusting ourselves. It wasn’t clean, it wasn’t really trusting the plays and such and it killed us. Not what we wanted."
The Blues power play had four chances and just six shots on goal, while Arizona had seven power plays, some of dubious provenance.
"Yeah, there's a lot of penalties," Berube said. "We had seven of them, and you know that's tough to go to the box that many times. To me, there's a lot of ticky-tack penalties. But what are you going to do? That's what happens."
Still, the Blues had a more solid start than they had in the first two games, and the second period drifted into lethargy for both teams. The teams combined for nine shots on goal in the period, just three by the Coyotes. But with Torey Krug in the penalty box for hooking, Clayton Keller blew past Oskar Sundqvist, came in alone on goalie Ville Husso, playing on his 26th birthday, and jammed it in.
Three minutes later, Brayden Schenn tried to liven his team up by squaring off with Johan Larsson at center ice, much to the delight of his teammates, even if their play didn't appreciably pick up after that.
The Blues had a power play midway through the third period with a chance to tie the game, but 11 seconds into the man advantage, David Perron was called for hooking, wiping out the advantage.
In the closing minutes, just as Husso got to the bench with 1:56 to go in the third period for the Blues to add a sixth attacker, Jaden Schwartz was called for interference to complicate the comeback. The Blues eventually pulled Husso to get on an extra attacker and get to even strength, but Chychrun scored into an empty net with 25.5 seconds left to end it.
The Blues came into the game without two regulars, defenseman Marco Scandella, out with an upper body injury, and forward Zach Sanford is out with the flu. Mackenzie MacEachern made his season debut filling in for Sanford. Mike Hoffman took Sanford's place on Ryan O'Reilly's line and MacEachern was with Sammy Blais on the fourth line, which had centers from other lines rotate through to fill it out.
This was the first time this season the Blues had gone with 11 forwards and seven defensemen.
