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.
