ST. LOUIS _ Two days after an ultra-solid victory over the defending Stanley Cup champion Washington Capitals, the St. Louis Blues once again couldn't stand prosperity.
After taking a 2-0 lead in the first period, the Blues watched the New York Islanders score the next four goals. They made things interesting late with Ryan O'Reilly's 16th goal, but that's as far as it got in a 4-3 loss to the Islanders on Saturday at Enterprise Center.
The Blues fell to 16-19-4 on the season. The Islanders, improving to 23-13-4, have won six in a row.
After the Blues missed out on their third power play opportunity of the night _ they are one-for-seven in the New Year and just four for 39 since the start of December, the Islanders struck quickly to take the lead.
Jordan Eberle and Johnny Boychuk scored for the Islanders just 11 seconds apart to turn 2-1 Blues lead into a 3-2 deficit. At that point in the game, the Islanders had only 11 shots on goal.
Those New York goals game at the 8:7 and 8:38 marks of the third. Four minutes after that sequence, the Blues had a power play and appeared to score the tying goal by Vladimir Tarasenko. But it was immediately waved off and a league review confirmed the initial ruling that the puck had been kicked in by Tarasenko's skate.
New York then officially took the air out of Enterprise when Anders Lee broke in alone on Jake Allen, and after an initial save scored on his own rebound.
The Blues had a lot of offensive zone time in the second period, and outshot the visiting New York Islanders 9-3. Nonetheless, the Islanders had the period's only goal, cutting the Blues' lead to 2-1 entering the third.
Matt Martin scored his fifth goal of the season for New York just 2 minutes 25 seconds into the second. Despite having three Blues around him in the low slot, Martin was left alone and beat Jake Allen stick side after taking a pass from Casey Cizikas from behind the net.
Each team had one power play in the period, but neither scored with the man advantage. Oskar Sundqvist, David Perron and Tarasenko all had good chances for the Blues.
Brayden Schenn scored his first goal in 10 games, and then Zach Sanford, just called up from San Antonio got his first Blues tally since Nov. 23.
The result was a 2-0 lead over the New York Islanders after one period on Saturday night at Enterprise Center.
It was the eighth goal of the season for Schenn, with Jaden Schwartz and Jay Bouwmeester earning assists just 4 minutes 11 seconds into the game.
For Sanford, playing in only his eighth game for St. Louis since that Nov. 23 goal against Nashville, it was his fifth of the season. It came on a net-front deflection of a Vince Dunn shot from just inside the blueline with 3:23 left in the period.
Making his 14th consecutive start, matching his career high, Allen stopped all six shots he faced in the opening period.
