Three takeaways from the Blues’ 4-2 loss to the Oilers

It had to happen at some point.

All good things must come to an end, and for the St. Louis Blues, their first regulation loss came under Jim Montgomery.

The Edmonton Oilers were opportunistic with their chances and took advantage of some mental errors by the Blues, doubling St. Louis, 4-2, Saturday at Rogers Place to spoil the respective returns of Philip Broberg and Dylan Holloway, each signing an offer sheet to leave Edmonton for St. Louis.

The Blues (13-13-2) did not play a bad game in this one. They were victims of their own loss that the Oilers (15-10-2) took full advantage of, something good teams should do, and as a result, they ended the Blues’ four-game road winning streak and left the Blues at 2-1-0 on a Canadian road trip that ends Tuesday against the Vancouver Canucks.

Here are three takeaways from a tough loss:

* Unexpected errors — The Blues were their worst victims and it cost them dearly.

They played a pretty good stretch on the road in the first period, but when Corey Perry came in from the point uncontested to make it 1-0 at 12:25, we wondered why the Blues were watching the puck. But there was a reason.

Confusion during a line change meant they only had four skaters on the ice at the end. They had made two changes, but when Robert Thomas and Colton Parayko realized each had replaced Oskar Sundqvist, each came off the ice, causing chaos and Perry lunged for an easy redirection:

The second goal was one of those unfortunate unforced errors from Broberg trying to move a puck up the ice when he sent a backhand straight off his partner Parayko’s leg in the slot to the wrong person if you’re the Blues (Connor McDavid). , and McDavid quickly beat Jordan Binnington at 5:19 of the second period to make it 2-0.

The third was the result of a goaltender interference penalty from Radek Faksa. It’s understandable why the officials called it because Faksa just hit Stuart Skinner while trying to get around the net on a forecheck while the Edmonton goalie saw him coming and decided to play basketball and put a choice, but this is a game where Faksa has to try to avoid contact even if the goalie is outside his crease, which he clearly was.

Zach Hyman scored on another redirect at 14:36 ​​of the second to make it 3-0, on a pass from McDavid behind the right post past Ryan Suter.

And on the fourth goal, after the Blues pushed their offense and cut it to 3-2 when Holloway scored on his return, and Neighbors’ power play goal made it a one-goal game with close With seven minutes to play, Troy Stecher’s goal The back breaker from the right wall that Binnington would like to recover, made the score 4-2, on a puck that the goalie did not seem to recover in time and he is passed in a way or another:

* Lack of finishing — The Blues outshot the Oilers 31-22 and had plenty of scoring opportunities, but this was one of those games where they lacked finishing.

The Blues had five players (Broberg, Brandon Saad, Zack Bolduc, Holloway and Pavel Buchnevich with at least three shots on goal), and nine players with at least two.

Robert Thomas had eight shot attempts, Kyrou had six and missed several others, Bolduc had eight, Holloway had six and Buchnevich had six. The opportunities were there, but having to play catch-up wasn’t ideal.

*Transition to the puck was not clean — The times the Blues were locked in the zone with long shifts were the result of poor puck play.

The only positive was that they limited the Oilers to the perimeter on these zone attacks, but they were just too inconsistent in their puck play. It could be the long road trip that took its toll, it could be the Oilers pressing high, much like the Calgary Flames did on Thursday, but regardless, it just didn’t seem like the Puck play was clean, and when the Blues managed to transition, there were too many one-and-dones.

Hear what Montgomery and the players had to say after the game: