The Columbus Blue Jackets have picked a bad time to go cold.
On Saturday night they lost their fifth straight match, 4-2, to the St Louis Blues on home ice.
Carl Gunnarsson had a goal in St Louis win – file photo by Lewis Bleiman
Vladimir Tarasenko struck for the winner in the third period when he made the score 3-1 St Louis.
“Coming off the break, obviously they’ve played a couple of games, we had the mentality to play heavy, play a simple game,” Ryan O’Reilly said. “It wasn’t perfect by any means, but the guys showed up ready to work. We stuck with it and battled.”
Jordan Binnington made 18 saves to back stop the win.
“We scored the first two goals and felt more confident,” Tarasenko said.
St Louis is 6-2-1 in their nine games.
Oliver Bjorkstrand and Pierre-Luc Dubois were the Columbus goal scorers.
“We were lethargic two of our last three games at a very important time of the schedule,” Columbus coach John Tortorella said.
O’Reilly and Carl Gunnarsson scored for the Blues, and Oskar Sundqvist added an empty-net goal late to close out the scoring.
“I beat my guy to the net and called for it,” Gunnarson said. “I didn’t have to move my stick.”
Columbus dropped to 28-20-3.
“We had good legs right away. I didn’t think our execution was overly great the first period, but we got better as the game went along,” St Louis head coach Craig Berube said.
[WATCH: All Blues vs. Blue Jackets highlights]
Joonas Korpisalo made 29 saves in the loss.
“We have to figure it out. It’s not just one guy. It’s our team. It’s a game very similar to Buffalo (a 5-4 home loss to the Sabres on Tuesday),” Tortorella said after the loss. “We regrouped, played a really hard game in Winnipeg (a 4-3 loss to the Jets on Thursday). I think that had something to do with it. We emptied the tank. That may have had a little influence on tonight’s game, but it can’t go like it did tonight.”
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