ST. LOUIS _ The Blues' offensive struggles continued, possibly hitting a critical level, as the team fell to Los Angeles, the team with the worst record in the league, 2-0 at Enterprise Center on Monday night.
And the offensive struggles mean struggles in general as the team has lost four of their past five games.
It was the second consecutive shutout for the Blues and their third in four games. That run also included a 1-0 shutout at Chicago, a team that was winless in eight games in a row at the time.
After playing the worst team in the league, it only gets a lot harder for the Blues the rest of the week. They play at Nashville, the team with the best record in the Western Conference on Wednesday and Friday, and then Winnipeg on Saturday.
The Blues fell behind in the second period when Matt Luff got his first NHL goal, finishing off a two-on-one with Adrian Kempe. The goal came after some extended time in the Kings' zone for the Blues that didn't lead to a goal. The Kings then won a defensive faceoff, broke out, and took the lead.
The score stayed that way until Anze Kopitar scored into an empty net with 29.5 seconds to play.
The Blues were coming off a shutout loss in San Jose on Saturday and were also shutout two games before that in Chicago. Going into the third period, they had four goals in the previous 12 periods and by being shutout in the first two periods, they had gone the equivalent of two games without a goal.
The Blues also failed to score on a first-period power play, running their streak there to six games without a power-play goal and 16 man-advantage chances overall. They also had a power play in the third period they couldn't score on.
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