GLENDALE, Ariz. _ Once again, the St. Louis Blues failed to follow a win with another win, posting another lackluster effort that kept them playing a man down for much of the game in a 6-1 loss to Arizona at Gila River Arena.
The Blues haven't won consecutive games since Nov. 6 and 9 and any boost they got from their solid and emotional win over Colorado on Friday seemed to have vanished. The Blues are 0-4 in the second half of back-to-back games, and they have allowed 21 goals in those games. On the bright side, the Blues don't play back-to-back games again until early January.
The Blues started the game without Alex Pietrangelo and Alexander Steen, who were both injured in the Colorado game, and lost forward Robby Fabbri in the closing seconds of the first period, when he checked Arizona's Josh Archibald in the corner and appeared to hurt his right shoulder or arm. He fell to the ice, got up, and skated off in obvious pain, holding his right arm, took off his helmet and went straight to the dressing room. He did not return.
One thing that put the Blues in a hole was penalties, and plenty of them. In the first two periods, as the Coyotes opened up a four-goal lead, they were on the power play for 11:32 of the 40 minutes as the Blues took one penalty after the other. The Blues, meanwhile, had one power play in the first two periods.
Chad Johnson, getting the start in goal, faced 38 shots in the first two periods alone. It was the second straight game in which Johnson had allowed six goals, though he made some excellent saves that kept the score from being even worse. Arizona finished with 44 shots on goal; the Blues had 26.
Vladimir Tarasenko got a game misconduct for shouting at the officials after a play in the third period and missed the final 10:44 of the game.
Arizona took a 1-0 lead on their third power play in a seven-minute span in the first period. After a hold by Oskar Sundqvist and a hook by Robert Bortuzzo, the third was a too-many-men penalty, the third by the Blues in five games. Jakob Chychrun scored on a shot with Johnson screened on the play by Colton Parayko. St. Louisan Clayton Keller assisted on the goal.
Just under two minutes after the goal, Sammy Blais got a double minor for high sticking Arizona's Michael Grabner, though half of the four minutes were wiped out when Sundqvist was tripped after the puck came clear after Johnson and the Blues were protecting the puck in a goal-mouth scramble.
Keller got his first career goal against the Blues 58 seconds into the second period, taking a pass from Nick Schmaltz, brother of Blues defenseman Jordan Schmaltz, and firing it past Johnson to make it 2-0. Twenty-eight seconds later, Robert Thomas redirected a shot from Jay Bouwmeester into the goal to make it 2-1, but Christian Fischer of Arizona scored 1:33 after that with bodies all over the crease to make it 3-1.
It went downhill from there. Nick Cousins scored 8:21 into the period to make it 4-1 and then Richard Panik skated onto a rebound while no one on the Blues went to pick him up and scored to make it 5-1. Alex Goligoski scored in the third period to make it 6-1.
Flying to the Phoenix area Friday night after the Colorado game, the Blues didn't arrive at their hotel in Glendale until 3 a.m. Central time.
With Pietrangelo out, Jordan Schmaltz returnedto the lineup after being a healthy scratch against Colorado.
Schmaltz returns to the third pairing, with Bouwmeester. Colton Parayko takes Pietrangelo's spot on the team's first D-pairing, with Joel Edmundson. Vince Dunn and Robert Bortuzzo form the second defensive pairing.
