Three Takeaways From Blues' 4-2 Loss Against Utah Hockey Club

It's starting to sound like a broken record for the 2024-25 St. Louis Blues.

Consistency. Making a run. Staying relevant in the Western Conference wild card race. They said all the right things – again – after stringing together consecutive wins against the Calgary Flames this past week. But once again, the chance at stringing together three straight wins goes by the wayside with an uninspiring start that led to a 4-2 loss against the struggling Utah Hockey Club at Delta Center on Saturday.

Tyler Tucker and Jake Neighbours scored for the Blues (22-21-4), and Jordan Binnington made 29 saves but the Blues fell three points behind the Flames, who won 3-1 against the Winnipeg Jets on Saturday, for the second wild card in the Western Conference.

Time to get into the Three Takeaways:

* Another chance at a three-game winning streak, another wasted opportunity – It’s amazing that 47 games in we’re talking about this team putting together a modest winning streak of three games.

I say modest because he’s face it, three wins in a row is not all that difficult. But the Blues remain the only team in the league to not have accomplished that feat, as amazing as that is. They are now 0-7-1 in those situations.

The insistence of turning the dial up one game, then thinking they can wade through a game and try to steal one knowing well enough that the opponent is desperate and won’t cower to you is why this team is, and will remain on the outside looking in when it’s all said and done for the Western Conference playoffs.

Until the Blues can prove us wrong, this team will miss the playoffs for a third straight season. Tonight’s performance was the tipping point.

* First period lacked any urgency, desperation led by Blues' top line, which was owned by Utah's top line (again) – The Blues knew well enough Utah (19-19-7) had lost three straight and had one win in its past six games (1-4-1). Oh, and Utah had the fewest home wins (six) in the NHL coming in.

And even after a Tyler Tucker goal 2:05 into the game put the Blues ahead 1-0, one in which fourth-line forward Liam O’Brien tried coaxing Tucker into a fight, threw his stick while Tucker was blasing a slapper by Connor Ingram off a Oskar Sundqvist face-off win, then eventually fighting – and splitting O’Brien’s head open – three seconds later, the Blues had no jump:

They looked and played discombobulated. Clayton Keller and Nick Schmaltz, who have tortured the Blues throughout their respective careers, were at it again. For what seemed like the millionth time, the Blues had one specific job, to try and neutralize Utah’s top line with Logan Cooley.

All that line did was out-point Robert Thomas, Pavel Buchnevich and Jake Neighbours 8-1 overall, 6-0 at even strength.

Michael Kesselring’s power-play goal after an unnecessary Zack Bolduc tripping minor 200 feet away from his net tied the game 1-1 at 6:06, but then a Schmaltz tap-in goal at 8:25 came after Thomas lost the puck trying to skate into the offensive zone, then he didn’t defend the middle of the ice on a cross seam pass to Keller that enabled him to find Schmaltz for the tap-in, which wasn’t defended by Colton Parayko or Cam Fowler well either:

And on Keller’s goal at 10:31 that made it 3-1, Thomas and Neighbours got crossed up moving the puck out of the zone, turned it over resulting in a minor penalty. But Keller finished off Cooley’s effort play after the young Utah center was taken down:

And Montgomery made an example of that line, benching the trio for the remainder of the period, other than Neighbours taking the ice for the final 13 seconds of a power play.

The Blues were outshot, and outclassed, in the period 17-6 and had to play catch-up hockey.

Knowing what was at stake and with the way Tucker set the tone early, that performance in the first period was simply baffling.

* Team did nothing with three third-period power-play opportunities – The Blues made some good pushes for the final 40 minutes. As mentioned, Neighbours pounced on a give-and-go play by Dylan Holloway and Brayden Schenn to cut the deficit to 3-2 at 1:32 of the second period:

And that line in particular with Holloway, Schenn and Jordan Kyrou was buzzing the entire game creating scoring opportunity after scoring opportunity, and despite being down two in the third period, the Blues worked themselves into three power play opportunities.

There was sustained zone time on each one but out of six minutes with an extra man, the Blues managed just one shot on goal. But plenty of missed nets.

There was one sequence where Holloway and Kyrou nearly scored, but Utah defenseman John Marino blocked what looked like a sure Kyrou goal. That’s the kind of commitment the home side made in this game and the Blues apparently not interested in.

Hear what Montgomery, Thomas and Buchnevich had to say following the game: