Other than a brief flurry of optimism in the second period, the St. Louis Blues had one of their roughest nights of the season on Thursday night in Denver, falling to the Colorado Avalanche 7-3.
It was the most goals allowed by the Blues and their most lopsided loss. Jordan Binnington was pulled late in the third after the seventh goal, the most he has allowed in his career.
It didn't look that bad when the Blues cut Colorado's 3-0 lead to 3-2 with 3:41 to go in the second, but Colorado scored a power-play goal with 16 seconds to go in the second and then scored the first three goals of the third to take a 7-2 lead.
Robert Thomas had two of the Blues' three goals; Alex Pietrangelo had the other.
The Blues last allowed seven goals on Dec. 16, 2018, falling to Calgary 7-2 at a time when the team was still struggling. After winning eight in a row, the Blues have now lost two in a row. They were outshot 42-27 in the game. Colorado scored on three of its five power plays.
Nazem Kadri had two goals for Colorado and Nathan MacKinnon and Samuel Girard each had four points.
The Blues had cut the lead from 3-0 to 3-2 on the goals by Thomas and Pietrangelo and threatened to tie the game but Jay Bouwmeester was called for tripping with 1:01 to play, setting the table for Cale Makar's power-play goal that went in off the post.
Kadri boosted the lead to 5-2 about seven minutes into the third to pretty much seal it and then for good measure they added goals from J.T. Compher on the power play and then one from Joonas Donskoi with 5:41 to go in the period to send Binnington to the bench.
Colorado had taken the lead to 2-0 on a goal by Kadri who banged in a rebound of a shot by Girard from a tough angle just 3:20 into the second period.
Colorado made it 3-0 on a goal by Mikko Rantanen during a five-on-three power play. The Avs had two extra men after an interference call on Tyler Bozak was followed 55 seconds later by a trip by Pietrangelo and with a second to go in the advantage which saw the Avs put heavy pressure on the Blues_the Blues should take note_Rantanen scored.
Colorado scored with 10.3 seconds to go in the first period to take a 1-0 lead. The Blues had the puck in Colorado's end of the ice with time running down when Justin Faulk couldn't hang on to the puck passed back to him by Brayden Schenn and MacKinnon of the Avalanche grabbed it and took off on a breakaway. He shot to the top right corner on Blues goalie Binnington and beat him cleanly for his 25th goal of the season.
The Blues had two power plays in the first period but had only two shots on goal in the four minutes with an extra man. Colorado had one power play had one shot on goal in its power play.
