Three Takeaways From Blues' 2-1 OT Loss Against Stars

Under normal circumstances, the St. Louis Blues would be pleased to take a point from divisional rival Dallas Stars, which they did on Saturday night.

They can call themselves fortunate that they escaped with one thanks to some spectacular goaltending from Jordan Binnington, but Matt Duchene won it for the Stars in overtime, 2-1, at American Airlines Center.

Duchene skated past Robert Thomas, then powered around Justin Faulk before snapping a shot far side on Binnington at 2:31 of the extra session to complete the comeback for the Stars (18-11-0), who moved five points clear of the Blues (14-14-3) for third place in the Central Division.

Jordan Kyrou netted the Blues' lone goal, but they were outshot 37-16 for the game in Cam Fowler's debut after the defenseman was acquired from the Anaheim Ducks Saturday morning.

Let's tackle the Three Takeaways:

* Goalie game -- The Blues got the goalie performance -- and then some -- that they wanted, and needed, from Binnington.

St. Louis was outshot 27-9 after the first 20 minutes and Binnington stopped all but one, a Jason Robertson high slot one-timer power-play goal 2:39 into the second period when the Stars took advantage of the Blues' undiscipline.

"He played great. He was standing on his head. We gave him a lot of work – too much work," Faulk said of Binnington. "We gave him too many good chances. We had a good first period and we didn’t follow it up, and he kept us in it. They were all over us and spent a lot of time in our zone, and we took a lot of penalties. He kept us in it, and he gave us an opportunity going into overtime. The reason we got a point was because of him."

* Face-off percentage was bad -- The Blues didn't have the puck much tonight, and a good portion of it was because they didn't start with the puck.

The Blues were fine in the first period, winning 12 of 25, which is just a shade under 50 percent, but won just 14 of 44 the rest of the game for a 38-percent average. And that includes Nathan Walker, who was 6-for-9. So take the fourth-line center tonight -- Radek Faksa (lower-body injury) missed his second straight game -- and the Blues were 30 percent from the dot.

That's going to force you to chase the puck a lot, and spend a lot of time in  your own zone and not attacking in the offensive zone. And the times they had the puck, they didn't keep it or put it in spots where teammates could forecheck and get it back.

"What we didn’t do is we didn’t get above pucks, we didn’t hang on to pucks, we weren’t getting on the right side of our checks and it led to a lot of either odd-man rushes or unfortunately us spending a lot of time in our d-zone," Blues coach Jim Montgomery said.

* Penalties were a problem -- The Blues lost the special teams battle again, and this time, the more problematic aspect was taking too many undisciplined minors.

Of the five minors they took, four of them were in the second period.

Brayden Schenn's delay of game penalty at 1:58 proved costly, resulting in Robertson's goal that tied the game 1-1. It came after the Blues began to unravel with getting hemmed in the zone after a pretty solid first period that netted two power-play chances of their own, going 0-for-2.

Alexandre Texier, who played for Brandon Saad tonight, took a bad holding the stick penalty in the offensive zone but it didn't cost the team; and Jake Neighbours' hooking a 16:23. Robert Thomas had a tripping minor 200 feet away from his net at 4:29 of the third period, but the Blues did limit the Stars to six shots on four power-play opportunities.

However, it is the fifth straight game the Blues have surrendered a power-play goal.