Blues drop third straight in regulation with 5-2 loss to Canucks

Matthew DeFranks, St. Louis Post-Dispatch on Jan 27, 2025

Published in Hockey

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ST. LOUIS — The Blues are trimming their own margin for error.

Game by game, loss by loss, the points are slipping away, and the Blues won’t have an opportunity to get them back.

Monday night’s 5-2 loss to the Vancouver Canucks was the latest blow, marking the first time under Jim Montgomery that the Blues have lost three straight games in regulation. The loss also dropped the Blues (23-24-4) below a .500 points percentage for the first time since losing to the Panthers on Dec. 20.

Dylan Holloway and Colton Parayko scored for the Blues, as Jordan Binnington was pulled in the second period after allowing three goals on 18 shots. Joel Hofer played the remaining period and a half.

Conor Garland scored twice for the Canucks, who also received goals from J.T. Miller (power play), Pius Suter (shorthanded) and Tyler Myers (empty net).

After the loss, the Blues have a tough hill in front of them to climb toward the traditional 95-point cutoff for a playoff spot in the Western Conference. To get there, they must accumulate 45 points in the 31 remaining games. That would mean a 22-8-1 record (or similar), which is a 119-point pace. St. Louis is still the only team in the league that has not won three games in a row.

The Blues will try to snap their losing streak when they visit Colorado on Friday night.

Controversial call

The game could have turned on a first-period goaltender inference call on the Blues that wiped out a Tyler Tucker goal and led to Garland’s power-play goal after Montgomery’s coach’s challenge was unsuccessful.

On the play, the league ruled “that Dylan Holloway entered the crease and made contact with Kevin Lankinen, which did not allow him to play his position.” Holloway was first contacted outside the crease by Canucks defenseman Quinn Hughes and then shoved into Lankinen by a subsequent Hughes crosscheck.

According to Rule 69.1, goals should be disallowed when “an attacking player, either by his positioning or by contact, impairs the goalkeeper’s ability to move freely within his crease or defend his goal.”

The rule book does have an exception for offensive players who are “pushed, shoved, or fouled by a defending player so as to cause him to come into contact with the goalkeeper, such contact will not be deemed contact initiated by the attacking player for purposes of this rule, provided the attacking player has made a reasonable effort to avoid such contact.”

It was Montgomery’s first challenge for goaltender interference with the Blues and marked his third straight unsuccessful one dating back to his time with the Bruins.

Tucker’s goal would have tied the game at 1-1 with five minutes left in the first period. Instead, the Blues wound up down 2-0 when Garland found a rebound that trickled through Binnington on a Brock Boeser shot on goal.

Tucker’s goal also would have been the Blues’ first game-tying goal since Jan. 7 in Minnesota, almost three weeks prior to Monday night.

PK still struggling

Garland’s power-play goal ensured that the Blues would allow a power-play goal in five straight games. When Miller scored 8:26 into the third period on the power play, it was the 10th goal the Blues penalty kill allowed in the past 13 games.

Miller scored to give the Canucks a 3-0 lead on a bad line change by the Blues that left Miller all alone on a breakaway with Binnington. Miller beat him with a shot from the slot, and Binnington’s night was over.

Miller had open ice when Mathieu Joseph, Pavel Buchnevich and Tucker all changed, allowing Lankinen and Hughes the freedom to find Miller with a stretch pass.

It was the second time this season that Binnington was yanked from a start and first time since Dec. 19 at Tampa Bay.

Holloway cashes in

Holloway scored his 16th goal of the season about halfway through the second period, rocketing a 92 mph blast from the right circle that zoomed past Lankinen. The goal cut the Vancouver lead to 3-1, but the Blues gave up a shorthanded goal later in the period during Nils Hoglander’s double-minor for high-sticking Robert Thomas.

Suter snuck a shot through Hofer, the fourth shorthanded goal allowed by the Blues this season.

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