Blues' struggles at home continue with frustrating 2-0 loss to Stars

Jeff Gordon, St. Louis Post-Dispatch on Jan 25, 2025

Published in Hockey

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ST. LOUIS — Home ice continues not to provide an advantage for the Blues.

They lost to the Dallas Stars 2-0 Saturday night at Enterprise Center to fall to 11-12-1 on their own rink.

By losing for the third time in four games overall, the Blues slipped back to 23-23-4 for the season and fell further off the pace in the Western Conference playoff chase.

As you would expect, Blues coach Jim Montgomery made lineup changes after his team’s 4-2 loss to the Vegas Golden Knights.

He gave young winger Zack Bolduc a look on a scoring line with Robert Thomas and Pavel Buchnevich. That bumped Jake Neighbours and Brandon Saad down to the third line with Oskar Sundqvist and made Nathan Walker a healthy scratch.

Bolduc, who sat out both games against the Vegas Golden Knights as a healthy scratch, is still striving to build shift-to-shift consistency at the NHL level. He possesses untapped offensive upside the Blues need.

Thomas and Buchnevich have both been struggling in 5-on-5 play recently, so Montgomery wanted to see if this new configuration would spark all three players.

They generated some chances in the game, but came away as frustrated as the rest of their teammates.

Stars start fast

Dallas played the night before, but the Stars got the jump on the Blues and took a 2-0 first-period lead.

The trouble started when Evgenii Dadonov got behind Colton Parayko and pushed a shot through Binnington 7:07 into the game.

Montgomery called a quick timeout hoping to reset his team, but the Stars kept the ice tilted.

Late in a power play, Dallas defenseman Esa Lindell made a back-door cut from the right point and converted a cross-ice pass from Roope Hintz.

Dallas earned a pair of 2-on-1 rushes later in the period, but Binnington thwarted one of them and the Stars simply misfired on another.

Blues try to push back

The Blues rebounded to outshoot Dallas 14-6 in the second period, but they couldn’t break through.

The line of Thomas flanked by Buchnevich and Bolduc did apply some pressure. Thomas got an opportunity by breaking toward the right post, but he couldn’t convert a cross-ice pass from Buchnevich.

Montgomery moved Radek Faksa up to the third line during the period and dropped Sundqvist to the fourth line.

Saad got a clean break-in, but Stars goaltender Casey DeSmith stayed with him to make a pad save.

Thomas broke in off the rush 5 minutes into the third period, but he couldn't beat DeSmith to his glove side while fighting off a check.

The Blues kept getting chances, including Mathieu Joseph's excruciating near-miss. He came off the bench and raced in on the left left wing, but his redirection of Thomas' pin-point pass hit the left post.

The frustration continued when Philip Broberg fired a shot off the right post from the high slot.

With Binnington off the ice for an extra attacker, the Blues applied more pressure by failed to score.

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