Predators at Blues Game Preview: Mulligan

“That was a hard game,” Berube said. “I thought we competed for 60 minutes, just didn’t get the result. But we’ve got to do a better job of screening goalies and getting some dirty goals around the net. We gotta get better in that area.”

That’s what the Blues’ new coach Craig Berube had to say after the team’s 4-1 loss Wednesday night to the Nashville Predators.

The try was there. The execution was not, despite Robert Thomas’ first NHL goal. A couple of turnovers (and a great short-handed goal by Fillip Forsberg, who the Blues are incapable of defending against) and an inexplicable call to pull Jake Allen with five minutes left in the game to gain a 5-3 PP advantage and the Blues are down 4-1 and that’s it.

“Yeah, I mean, obviously mistakes happen and it happened there,” Schenn said. “We still played hard, we competed. . .it didn’t let us down that much. We still kept fighting and competing and trying to get that second goal and we just weren’t able to do it.”

Compete is good. I’m glad that the Blues feel the need to compete now that Mike Yeo’s been fired (and I’m sure they felt it before, in fits and starts), but winning a game is less about competing and more about paying attention. You can try as hard as you want to, but as long as you continue to make stupid mistakes you’re going to lose. That’s that.

It doesn’t help that the Blues were down a flotilla of their best players: Carl Gunnarsson, Alexander Steen, Jaden Schwartz, and Pat Maroon were all out - and only Maroon is free to return to the lineup tonight.

If the Blues continue to lay eggs on home ice as they’ve done all year, they’re going to keep killing attendance numbers, revenue, and maybe even TV ratings (which are still better than the attendance, so folks are still watching even if it may be out of morbid curiosity). Something has to give at some point. Maybe tonight will be that give.