ST. LOUIS _ All of a sudden, home is where the heartache is for the Blues.
For the first part of the season, Scottrade Center was a dependable place for the Blues to pick up two points, but now, it seems like alien territory. The Blues lost for the fourth time in five games on their home ice _ that doesn't count the Winter Classic win at Busch Stadium _ and did it with something less than error-free hockey in a 6-4 loss to Ottawa on Tuesday night.
The loss snapped the Blues' two-game win streak, which had somehow been achieved on the road, where the Blues had won just five of 17 games prior to consecutive wins in San Jose and Anaheim. Back home, where the Blues had lost just five times in 25 games prior to Tuesday, it wasn't as pretty.
There was a puck the goalie thought he had frozen, a puck the defense couldn't find in the crease and a turnover after the team failed maybe four times to get the puck out of their own zone and some plain bad luck. It was the eighth straight game at Scottrade that the Blues had allowed three or more goals. Fortunately for the Blues, road games far outweigh home games the rest of the way.
Carter Hutton got his third straight start in goal and stopped 18 of 23 shots. Before the game, Blues coach Ken Hitchcock said winning was the big thing now and they would stick with Hutton as long as they were winning, which means it's possible Jake Allen could be back in goal on Thursday when the Blues face Washington, the league's best team, at Scottrade Center.
The Blues, who had never trailed in their two-game win streak, never led on Tuesday. The Blues started the third down 3-2 but tied the game 1:35 in on a goal by Alexander Steen. He came out of the box after he and Ottawa's Derick Brassard had served matching slashing penalties. The Blues were on a power play after Jean-Gabriel Pageau had been called for interference, and when both Steen and Brassard came out of the box, no one picked up Steen. Kevin Shattenkirk found him unattended in the circle to goalie Mike Condon's left and his one-time wrister tied the game.
The success was too much for the Blues. The Blues had several chances to clear the puck out of their own end and couldn't, or wouldn't, do it. At times, the decision to keep the puck in was voluntary. Eventually, Jaden Schwartz fell down, Ottawa's Mark Stonen got the puck and beat Hutton to make it 4-3. The tie game had lasted all of one minute.
A goal by Mike Hoffman with 6:07 to play gave Ottawa some breathing room and an empty-netter with 1:13 left sealed it. The ubiquitous Patrik Berglund scored with 47 seconds left. It was his third goal in two games and his 10th in 15 games.
The start of the game was just like old times for the Blues, as they gave up the first goal for the seventh straight time at Scottrade Center. This time, the goal came less than four minutes in. when Hutton stopped a shot from along the goal line by Tom Pyatt and the rebound sat in the crease and Pageau got to it before either Hutton or Joel Edmundson could.
The Blues evened the score just before the halfway point when, four seconds after a power play had ended, Jay Bouwmeester took a shot from the point that Paul Stastny redirected from in front of the net past Ottawa goalie Mike Condon. It was Stastny's 11th goal of the season and fourth in his past six games.
The Blues had plenty of zone time to start the second period and couldn't score, and then the tide shifted. With Stastny in the box for slashing, Kyle Turris took a shot that was blocked by Robert Bortuzzo. That wasn't a good thing, however, because the puck came to a wide-open Hoffman standing on the opposite side and he had an open net to shoot into to put the Senators ahead.
Eighty-five seconds later, Ottawa scored again. Ryan Dzinggle took a shot that was stopped by Hutton. The puck came to rest under Hutton's skate, but he never covered it. Bobby Ryan skated in and several seconds later poked it in to make it 3-1. The Blues briefly protested and the officials briefly discussed it, but the goal stood.
The Blues got a goal back in the final minute, with Vladimir Tarasenko feeding Shattenkirk at the blue line and his one-timer wobbled a bit on the way in but beat Condon to make it 3-2.
