ST. LOUIS — There are limits to how much a team can go without. On Saturday, the Blues had five of their top players — Vladimir Tarasenko, Brayden Schenn, David Perron, Pavel Buchnevich and Colton Parayko — out of the lineup and three recent call-ups in from Springfield in Nathan Walker, Dakota Joshua and Alexei Toropchenko. That would make the situation tough against any team, even harder against Toronto, one of the top teams in the league.
What the Blues had going for them was a demonstrated ability to come from behind — a league-high 13 wins after trailing — and a run of success at Enterprise Center, where they were 12-0-1 in their past 13 games, but that will only get you so far, and on Saturday, it wasn’t far enough. The Blues came back again and again, first from two goals down to tie, then from one goal down to take the lead, but then got overwhelmed in the third period by Toronto and lost, 6-5, before a sellout crowd at Enterprise Center.
Toronto got the game-winner at the end of a very long possession in the Blues’ zone late in the third period. Marco Scandella botched a chance to get the puck out of the zone, missing badly on a pass to Justin Faulk, Toronto got the puck and Ilya Mikheyev drilled a shot that got stuck in the roof of the net, confusing everyone for a moment but clearly a goal.
The loss snapped the Blues’ three-game winning streak and was their first regulation loss at home since falling to Arizona on Nov. 16, a day short of two months ago.
Once down 3-1, the Blues had battled their way back to be even at 4-4 to start the third. They had to kill off a short power play to start the period and then with 3:25 gone in the period, took their first lead since 1-0. Jordan Kyrou took the puck behind the net and when he got clear on the other side, made a short pass to Niko Mikkola, parked at the top of the crease, who jammed it in between goalie Jack Campbell’s pad and the post. There was a lengthy review to make sure the puck had crossed the goal line and when it was confirmed, Mikkola had his third goal of the season and the Blues a 5-4 lead.
Toronto tied it on a power-play goal by Auston Matthews after Klim Kostin went off for two minutes for holding while the Maple Leafs had been threatening to score. Jordan Binnington was down in his crease and Matthews shot over the top of him with 8:36 to go in the period.
Ryan O’Reilly put the Blues ahead 3:58 into the game, finishing off another nice pass from Ivan Barbashev to score his second goal in three games. It did not take long for the night to come apart.
One minute, 45 seconds later, it was a tie game. O’Reilly lost a faceoff in his own end to Matthews, and two seconds later, Toronto’s Michael Bunting was extending his stick to backhand the puck into the Blues net.
Less than two minutes later, the Blues were behind. Oskar Sundqvist was trying to skate the puck out of his end and lost the puck to Mitch Marner, who made a quick U-turn and came in alone on Binnington and beat him over his glove to make it 2-1.
The Maple Leafs weren’t done. Alexander Kerfoot and Mikkola were tied up with the puck at their feet in the slot, Kyrou didn’t get to it, and as Mikkola and Kerfoot’s momentum carried them up ice, the puck stayed behind. John Tavares scooped it up and beat Binnington above his glove hand. Three goals in 3:44 put the Maple Leafs up 3-1 with 10;33 to go in the first.
Blues coach Craig Berube called timeout to try to settle things down and the Blues did keep the Maple Leafs off the board the rest of the period. The Blues had a power play that produced little in the way of scoring chances.
With 3:51 to go in the period, Barbashev took a knee to the thigh from Travis Dermott and went down and stayed down, finally getting helped off the ice and missing the rest of the period, but he was back on the ice for the start of the second period.
With 2:28 to go, Mikkola went at it with Bunting, knocking him down with a hard check in front of the Blues bench. Bunting got up, said something directed at the Blues bench, and the next thing you knew, Torey Krug skated in and cross checked Bunting, sending him to the ice, and Krug then jumped on and started swinging. The penalties ended up offsetting, with Bunting getting two for unsportsmanlike conduct and Krug getting two for roughing.
It looked like the start of a long night for the Blues, but just over five minutes into the second period, the game was tied. A shot by Mikkola went off the end boards and to the side of the net, where O’Reilly got his stick on the puck and Matthews knocked it in with 16:20 to go in the period.
One minute, 40 seconds later, Robert Thomas grabbed a loose puck in the high slot, turned and sent it toward the net, where Brandon Saad stopped it, did a little maneuvering, and tied the game.
Toronto, however, would soon regain the lead on a one-timer from defenseman Timothy Liljegren through traffic, his first in 34 NHL games, with 11:42 to go in the second.
Though he didn’t score the goal, a lot of hard work by Kyrou got the game tied again. He won a hard-fought puck battle along the boards with Liljegren that kept the puck in the Toronto zone. Kyrou eventually got the puck back, skated it behind the Leafs net, where he slammed on the brakes, turned and saw Thomas set up at the post, passed it to him and Thomas chipped it in with 3:47 to go in the period.
