The St. Louis Blues will look to halt a three-game losing streak when they host the Columbus Blue Jackets on Saturday night.
The Blues have hit sour notes following a 4-0 victory over the Dallas Stars in a season opener on Oct. 2. St. Louis fell 3-2 in overtime in its most recent outing, at home against the San Jose Sharks on Thursday.
“I think we certainly felt like we gave ourselves an opportunity to win the game, so only coming away with one point is disappointing,” Blues defenseman Cam Fowler said. “But there’s a lot that we can build off of as well … some points in our game that we can work on moving forward and getting ready for Saturday.”
St. Louis has just five goals during its winless stretch (0-2-1). Blues coach Jim Montgomery vented his frustration over the team’s lack of goal scoring with a colorful quote following Thursday’s loss.
“Right now, if we fell out of a boat and we were trying to score a goal, we would not hit the ocean, and it’s causing problems,” he said.
Connor McMichael and Dillon Dube each scored a goal for the Blues on Thursday.
Off-season additions McMichael (two goals, two assists) and Mason McTavish (two goals, one assist) are leading the way offensively for the Blues, while captain Robert Thomas has failed to record a point through the first four games.
Thomas has topped the Blues in points over each of the past two seasons and has 373 points in 361 games over his previous five seasons.
The Blue Jackets should be feeling good heading into Saturday’s game after outlasting the Pittsburgh Penguins 3-2 in a shootout on Friday.
Kent Johnson scored the lone shootout goal to secure the victory. Damon Severson and Mathieu Olivier also found the back of the net in regulation for Columbus.
The Blue Jackets controlled the majority of the play against the Penguins, outshooting them 45-22.
“You saw a lot tonight how we wanna play; Columbus Blue Jacket hockey was out there tonight for the most part,” Columbus coach Rick Bowness said. “We dominated the game at certain times, and yeah they had some flashes, they’re an excellent hockey team over there. For the most part that’s Columbus Blue Jackets hockey, we’re going north, we’re hard to play against. That was good to see.”
Severson, who was playing in his first game this season, also picked up an assist, and Cole Sillinger set up two goals in the win.
Cam Talbot made 20 saves and denied all three attempts in the shootout en route to his first win in a Blue Jackets uniform. Talbot signed with the team as a free agent on a one-year, $950,000 deal last month.
Columbus will play on the road for the first time this season on Saturday.
The Blue Jackets have dominated the Blues in recent seasons, winning the previous six meetings.
