Blues blown out, 8-1, by Senators in worst loss in almost four years

Matthew DeFranks, St. Louis Post-Dispatch on Oct 29, 2024

Published in Hockey

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OTTAWA, Ontario — About 90 minutes after a power outage stalled proceedings at the Canadian Tire Centre, a repeat would have been helpful for the Blues after a toothless first period in an eventual 8-1 loss to the Senators on Tuesday night.

At the first intermission on Tuesday night, the Blues already trailed by three goals, courtesy of poor puck management in the offensive zone. It was the seventh time in 10 games this season that the Blues trailed by multiple goals, and the seventh time that St. Louis was outshot in the first period.

It didn’t get much better after that.

Ottawa scored three goals in the first and three more in the second to turn the third period into a mere formality. The loss was the worst by the Blues since an 8-0 loss at Colorado on Jan. 15, 2021.

Brady Tkachuk (twice), Tim Stutzle (twice), Adam Gaudette (twice), Josh Norris and Noah Gregor scored for the Senators. Dylan Holloway scored for the Blues in the third period on the power play.

Joel Hofer made 16 saves on 21 shots before he was pulled from the game after Tkachuk’s first power-play goal of the night. Jordan Binnington finished the game for St. Louis, and was beaten by Gaudette on the first shot that he faced in the second period.

The Blues dropped to 5-5-0 on the season with a game in Philadelphia on Thursday to finish their four-game road trip.

Giving it away

The Blues sabotaged themselves early on Tuesday night, turning the puck over often to give the Senators rush chances, falling back into a similar pattern that bit them in a loss on Saturday to the Canadiens.

Norris scored 1:04 into the game, capitalizing on a Pavel Buchnevich turnover in the offensive zone and then beating Buchnevich in a race back to the Blues net to finish a pass from Claude Giroux. Tkachuk nearly made it 2-0 on a breakaway 25 seconds later, almost scoring after a Jake Neighbours turnover in the offensive zone.

Gregor scored at 4:44 of the first after Brandon Saad fumbled a puck in front of the Senators net, and Brayden Schenn missed a chance to disrupt Michael Amadio’s zone exit. Amadio later drove wide on Pierre-Olivier Joseph, eluding his reach and sweeping a pass across the slot to Gregor on the backdoor. Gregor eluded Schenn just enough to beat Hofer into the top corner.

Stutzle scored an unassisted goal with 4:56 remaining in the first period, depositing Neighbours’ turnover into the Blues net. Stutzle led a 2 on 1 with Tkachuk as Joseph was left to defend after hopping onto the ice during a partial change.

Overall in the first period, the Blues were outshot 16-8.

Falling further

Instead of clawing back in the second period, the Blues simply dug themselves deeper.

Both Dylan Holloway’s tripping penalty and Matthew Kessel’s cross-checking penalty turned into Tkachuk power-play goals. On his first at 8:55 of the second period, Tkachuk finished a tic-tac-toe passing sequence from the slot. On his second at 11:08 of the second, Tkachuk’s long-range shot from the right circle beat Hofer and ended his night.

Gaudette gave Binnington a rude welcome to the game with a shot from the slot that found the back of the net at 11:50. Gaudette scored again with 4:33 remaining in the third period on a fumbled puck by Zack Bolduc in front of the Blues net.

Gaudette spent parts of the last two seasons in the St. Louis system after he was traded from Toronto as part of the Ryan O’Reilly deal. Last season, Gaudette led the AHL with 44 goals while playing for AHL affiliate Springfield.

Delayed start

The start of Tuesday’s game was delayed more than 20 minutes due to a power outage at Canadian Tire Centre. The game started at 7:34 p.m., when games in Canada scheduled for 7 p.m. typically begin at 7:10 p.m.

The power flickered twice around 6:45 p.m. toward the end of the teams’ on-ice warmup. For about 10 minutes, backup lights were on, but the video board, ribbons, sound system and electrical outlets were down. About 10 minutes after that, the in-arena Wi-Fi was back up.

The Senators originally announced the game would start at 7:15 p.m., before pushing back puck drop to 7:30 p.m., with a five-minute warmup that began at 7:23 p.m.

— Blues forward Kasperi Kapanen did not play the third period due to an upper-body injury. He absorbed a hit from Zack MacEwen along the boards early in the second period and was slow getting to the St. Louis bench.