ST. LOUIS – There was a buzz in the building for the St. Louis Blues, with Hall of Famers in attendance, including Curtis Joseph, Wayne Babych and the family of former assistant coach Jimmy Roberts.
Joseph, who tended the net with the Blues from 1989-95, and Babych, a forward who was the first 50-goal scorer in Blues history playing in St. Louis from 1978-84, came inside the locker room and reading off the starting lineup pregame, there should have been amped up energy against a tired Dallas Stars, who played the previous night.
But once again, another slow start against another perennial power in the Western Conference put the Blues behind the Eight-ball and Dallas locked down a 2-0 win against the Blues on Saturday at Enterprise Center.
The Blues (23-23-4) started off even slower on Thursday in a 4-2 loss against the Vegas Golden Knights, who the Stars (31-17-1) beat 4-3 on Friday in a very emotional game. But the Blues didn’t learn their lesson yet again against a team that if you give them an inch, they’ll squeeze the life out of you. And despite a 33-19 edge in shots on goal, along with multiple missed backdoor tap-ins, posts and empty cages the Blues couldn’t find, they never solved Stars backup Casey DeSmith and were shut out for the first time since March 30, 2024, 4-0 against the San Jose Sharks.
But the Blues were down 2-0 midway through the first period before trying to make desperate pushes in the final 40 minutes.
“We’re going to start doing things differently,” Blues coach Jim Montgomery said. “We have to because we had a great crowd tonight. Our fans were ready to rock. We were honoring Bruce Affleck, Jimmy Roberts, Wayne Babych and ‘Cujo.’ They both came in and did the starting lineup. I thought we were going to have a great start and didn’t materialize.
“Maybe we do morning skates at Centene. We’ve got to disrupt the rhythm somehow so that we have a little more urgency.
“They did a pretty good job of locking it down. Their habits and details defensively. Offensively obviously. They’re a good hockey team.”
Let’s look at Saturday’s Three Takeaways:
* Another slow start – The Blues were down a goal just 19 seconds into Thursday’s game. OK, those things happen. But it’s happened multiple times with this particular group, and it happened again on Saturday.
Montgomery called a timeout after Evgenii Dadonov made it 1-0 7:07 into the game, and it’s puzzling how this puck got through and by Brayden Schenn and…