ST. LOUIS _ For the first time since the 2017-18 season, the Blues have a winless streak of four games. It didn't happen at all last season _ not even during the Blues' early-season struggles.
But the Blues are now 0-2-2 in their last four games following Saturday's 5-2 loss to Montreal before another sellout crowd of 18,096 at Enterprise Center.
"Not a buy-in right now _ enough of a buy-in to team play," coach Craig Berube said. "Everybody's accountable. Everybody."
The two losses in that 0-2-2 skid have both come at the hands of the Canadiens (4-2-2), who beat the Blues, 6-3, a week ago in Canada.
The good news? The Blues don't have to play Montreal again this season.
The Blues were briefly ranked No. 1 in the NHL in penalty killing Saturday, having stopped 94.1% of their opponents' power plays this season (16 of 17).
So much for that. Montreal scored on their first two power plays Saturday, the second of which _ by Jonathan Drouin _ gave the visitors a 3-1 lead in the second period. Both power play goals came after backdoor seam passes.
"Same play," defenseman Alex Pietrangelo said. "We're usually pretty good at covering those. So we'll take a look at it. Again, we've been pretty good on the kill."
Before that, goalie Jake Allen gave up a bad, bad goal, getting beat high and far side from the blue line by a Brendan Gallagher shot off the second period faceoff.
So just six seconds into the second period the Blues trailed 2-1.
"I'm gonna take a lot of responsibility on that (loss) for that goal," Allen said. "I think it took a lot of wind out of our sails ... . It hit my stick and somehow hit my shaft and went the other way. Still, there's no excuses."
Then came Drouin's goal just 3 { minutes later. It became 4-1 when rookie Nick Suzuki was left all alone in the near slot and beat Allen with 8:27 left in the second.
Shea Weber scored an empty-net goal to round out the scoring by Montreal. The Blues got an early goal by Jaden Schwartz and a late one (with an extra attacker and Allen off the ice) from David Perron.
Schwartz's first goal of the season was a beauty _ a no-look backhander to beat Montreal goalie Carey Price and tie the game at 1. That's the way the first period ended as the Blues attempted to break a three-game winning streak.
With Allen making his first home start since Jan. 8, 2019 against Dallas, the Canadiens scored first with a power-play goal by Jordan Weal at the 5:57 mark of the first and Justin Faulk off for tripping.
