ST. LOUIS _ In an eminently predictable result, the Blues followed up their win over Winnipeg on Friday with another bad loss, this time giving up three goals to Vancouver in the first period on their way to a 6-1 loss to the Canucks before a disapproving crowd at Enterprise Center on Sunday.
The Blues have now been outscored 24-6 in the games following their past four wins, losing each one by at least four goals, and have gone more than a month since winning consecutive games. The team fell to 3-5-1 under interim coach Craig Berube and has shown no signs of changing what ailed them under Mike Yeo. It was the sixth time in 16 home games they have allowed five or more goals (and eight out of 28 overall). Predictably, the game ended with boos again.
"There is no consistency in our game," forward Vladimir Tarasenko said. "I apologize to all our fans. We can't play at home like this. It's unacceptable. I don't know how to like fix it. We work on it, but it doesn't work for now. We have a really hard game and then the next day, we just blow up like this. Like, I don't know."
"You have to go into every game, no matter who you play, and you have to be committed to giving 100 percent effort and compete as hard as you can, every game," Berube said. "If you don't, it doesn't matter who you play, that's what can happen to you, what happened today."
Alexander Steen said he didn't think the team had the necessary commitment and Berube agreed. "It should be a given but right now it's not," he said.
Asked if he was disappointed in the team's veterans not taking more control of the situation, Berube said, "Very disappointed. Not even close."
Elias Petterson had one goal and four assists for the Canucks and Brock Boeser had a hat trick while Blues forward Jordan Kyrou got his first NHL goal, though it came with the Blues down 5-0 in the third period.
It was an ominous start for the Blues when Vancouver took a 1-0 lead on a shot that went off the glass behind the Blues' goal, bounced off the back of goalie Jake Allen, and went in to the net. Which turned out to be the beginning of the end.
"Fluky goal, bad bounce goes in and we get quiet," Berube said. "We stop playing. Saying that, we gave up eight scoring chances in the game and six goals against. There are a lot of areas that have to be better tonight, for sure."
"We're a fragile group," center Brayden Schenn said.
The telling point in the first period was a four-minute Blues power play after Alexander Steen took a stick to the face from Erik Gudbranson. Extended power plays have never been a strength of the Blues, who seem to look at the extra time as more of an opportunity to pass the puck around. This time, they had trouble getting set up in Vancouver's zone and it took them more than three minutes to get their first shot off. In the whole power play, they had just two shots on goal.
"It was awful," said Schenn.
"Two shots in four minutes is unacceptable on the power play," Berube said.
Thirty-one seconds after the power play ended, Vancouver put the puck in the net, with Pettersson taking a shot that was slowed by Jay Bouwmeester's stick and got past Jake Allen.
Eighty seconds later, it was 3-0 when Brock Boeser finished off a two-on-one with Pettersson after a Blues turnover. That led to Allen being pulled from the game in favor of Chad Johnson.
"It's got to be better," Berube said of the goaltending. "Just like our other players have to be better too. We get a four-minute power play and nothing happens. Especially early in the game like that, we have to make something happen there and that's our best players on the ice."
The Blues got through the rest of the period without allowing any more goals, but then they gave up two in the second, with Petterson recording another assist to give him three for the game along with a goal.
Kyrou got his goal 11:55 to go in the third. Robert Bortuzzo took a shot but his stick exploded. The puck trickled up to Kyrou in front of him, and he shot it in. He gave himself a big fist pump for the goal, which came in his 11th NHL game. But before the ink was even dry, Vancouver got the goal back on Boeser's third goal of the night.
