ST. LOUIS _ Blues games continue to be high on drama, low on results.
The Blues came back from being down 2-0 and 3-1 to get even in the second period, but a power-play goal for Nashville against the Blues' suddenly porous penalty kill gave the Predators a 4-3 win on Saturday afternoon at Enterprise Center.
It was the fourth loss in a row (two in overtime) for the Blues, who are 2-6-3 in their past 11 games.
"I'm not sure guys are overly frustrated," coach Craig Berube said. "I don't feel a lot of that. There's frustration for sure because we're not winning, but in-game, we're engaged and guys are doing good things. I don't find that we're showing frustration that much during the game."
"When we're hard to play against, that's when we're playing our best hockey," center Brayden Schenn said. "That's when we frustrate teams. I don't think we're doing enough of that in the last 12 games. That's our staple of our hockey team, defense first and closing out plays quick and we have to be better at that."
The teams will meet again on Sunday in Nashville. It was a spirited game on Saturday.
"We need to play a complete game," defenseman Vince Dunn said, "and tonight we came out flat in the first period and we get down against a team that's really desperate right now and it's hard to get back into it. It just comes down to focus and being ready from the start. It's not always going to be pretty game for us at the start, but as long as we're playing the right way. We were playing a little bit of catchup from the first period and that's just not good enough."
The Blues gave up four power-play goals to Vegas on Thursday and gave up one on Saturday, a goal by Mikael Granlund with 16:01 to go in the third. It came 17 seconds into a penalty on Carl Gunnarsson for holding.
Berube did not like the call on Gunnarsson, or one on Schenn earlier in the period.
"I didn't like the two calls in the third period," he said. "I thought they were weak. We've got to kill that. Different game."
At the start, the Blues seemed to still be carrying the burden of Jay Bouwmeester's medical emergency on Tuesday in Anaheim.
Prior to the game, there was a tribute to the people who worked to save Bouwmeester's life at Anaheim.
"Pretty emotional with everything going on before the game," Berube said. "That obviously had an affect on our group, but we recovered from it. I thought we outplayed them in the second and third period for the most part. I thought we were a better team, but we ended up short."
"We're a sensitive team right now," Dunn said, "and obviously we feel for him, for each other and for his family. It's hard to get over something like that. When we're on the ice we're playing for him. It's a little bit of shame on us and we need to step up for him. When he's in the lineup, he's definitely a big presence. Everyone needs to step up and focus on making sure they're doing their job."
After an erratic first 10 minutes, the Blues snapped out of some big-time doldrums and the rally was started, not surprisingly, by Zach Sanford.
Sanford, who scored four goals on Thursday night, scored 4:13 into the second period to start a three-goal period that got the Blues even with Nashville at 3-3 after two periods. Jaden Schwartz and Jordan Kyrou also scored for the Blues, who at one point had three goals on five shots on goal in the period.
Sanford has five goals in two games and nine goals in nine games since the All-Star break as he just keeps on going. Coming into the season, he had 10 goals in 73 games with the Blues.
Sanford got the goal started, skating the puck out of the Blues zone. He gave it to Robert Thomas, who skated into the zone and then gave it to Sammy Blais at the blueline, who found Sanford alone on the right side for his 13th goal of the season.
Nashville pushed the lead back to two goals on one by Kyle Turris just 21 seconds later, but less than two minutes after that, Schwartz scored on a power play, redirecting in a shot by Schenn.
With 9:10 to go, Kyrou scored his third goal of the season. Tyler Bozak got in on the forecheck, and while he didn't touch the puck, his stick knocked the puck to Kyrou at the post and he chipped it in to tie the game. Initially there was no assist for Bozak, who looked to have hit Mattias Ekholm's stick, but it was added later.
The Blues had a late power play that produced a lot of chances, but they couldn't get the go-ahead goal.
It was a far cry from the first period where, in their first home game since Bouwmeester collapsed on Tuesday, the Blues looked to still be in a funk at the outset as they were sloppy in just about every aspect of play.
It took fights by Schenn and Robert Bortuzzo to finally get the team going, but by then, it was almost halfway through the period. In the first 12 minutes of the period, the Blues had just one shot on goal, and it was by Alex Pietrangelo on a clearance from 165 feet away that happened to be on net.
Nashville went up 1-0 on a goal by Viktor Arvidsson, who last time he was in St. Louis got crosschecked by Bortuzzo, who got a four-game suspension for it. This time, Arvidsson shot from a low angle and beat Jake Allen at the near post.
The Predators went up 2-0 with 7:37 to go in the first on a goal by Matt Duchene, who finished off a 3-on-2 break and beat Allen, again at the near post.
Schenn dropped his gloves and landed some solid rights on Filip Forsberg after the two exchanged crosschecks in front of the Blues net. With 11:01 to go in the period, Bortuzzo, who figured to attract attention, squared off with Jarred Tinordi after an extended exchange of words. Bortuzzo got a hearty pat on the back on the head from Schenn when he entered the penalty box.
The Blues had a couple chances. Justin Faulk had a shot that was blocked in front and sat untouched on the ice for several moments and was cleared just before Ivan Barbashev could get to it.
The Blues had a power play late in the period but couldn't get anything from it. Nashville had one even later but couldn't do anything either, and then with 9.6 seconds to go, David Perron was called for tripping, but they killed that one off too.
