The St. Louis Blues are at the point in the 2025-26 season where they need to go on a legitimate winning streak to have a real shot at getting a playoff spot, regardless of how mediocre the wild card picture continues to be. Their inability to win three in a row is a real roadblock to that.
The issue the Blues seem to have is that they don't even come close. Every time they win two in a row, they'll start to look pretty decent and then go into game three and do nothing.
That's exactly what happened in Edmonton. St. Louis never got into a flow, and when talent took over, it was over early.
The Blues were given a power play in the first two minutes when Edmonton had too many men on the ice. St. Louis proceeded to not even get a shot on goal.
Edmonton had a power play of its own shortly after that. Less than a minute into their own man advantage, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins gave Jordan Binnington no chance to make it 1-0.
It was 2-0 before long. The Oilers utilized the shot pass off the left pad and slotted home the rebound into the empty net a little over midway through the period.
St. Louis foolishly put themselves in a five-on-three situation for almost a minute, but managed to kill off both penalties. The lack of five-on-five play didn't help their cause to get any footing, and the Oilers made it 3-0 before the break.
A shot from out high was headed to the outside of the near post. Zach Hyman got a deflection on it to put it inside the post for the three-goal lead.
St. Louis had seven shots on goal, but never really looked like challenging. The irony is that they actually had a good second period, but found themselves down by four.
The Blues ended the period with 12 shots in the second, as well as several second chances. Unfortunately, they allowed the only goal of the frame at 10:52. Hyman got his second of the game when he blasted a wrister off the stick of Parayko, the post, and in.
It got worse in the third as it was 5-0 before the period was two minutes old. Connor McDavid managed to get the puck on the right and then spin, lose it for a moment, and get up from a bear crawl position. and send it to the back door, where there was little pressure, and Vasiliy Podkolzin banged it in.
St. Louis had eight third-period shots, but again, barely threatened. Edmonton has elite talent, but the Blues have kept them in check in the past and didn't come close in this one with a 5-0 loss.
Con: Special teams
Special teams have been an issue all season long, but for a long time, it was just ineffective. Now, it's becoming a reason the Blues are losing games.
In a game where the officials were willing to put someone in the box for sneezing on someone, you had to get something on the power play. The Blues' power play was about as ineffective as we've seen all season long.
There have been blips of better play, but this game did not have one. The Oilers gave the Blues four opportunities to get back into the game, and St. Louis maybe threatened once - and that's a maybe.
The penalty kill did a pretty good job of keeping the team in the game by killing off the five-on-three. However, they did allow a power play goal, and that was the first goal of the game.
Con: Blues play for Binnington
There is always going to be a vocal section of the fanbase that blames Jordan Binnington for these losses. However, when their argument is simply "he sucks" or "his job is to stop the puck", you realize how unintelligent the argument is.
Binnington has not had a great season. Even I cannot deny that, but the team itself is sucking the life out of him.
They don't support him at all. Even if he stood on his head in this game, scoring no goals against a goalie that even Edmonton fans probably couldn't pick out of a lineup isn't going to get it done.
The quality of the defending and the lack of intelligence behind their decisions are astounding when Binnington is in goal. They're not a ton better in front of Joel Hofer, but there's a difference in how they play.
The ironic thing is that he's much milder and less abrasive now, but the team almost seems tired of him. You'd think if there was any issue, which I don't think there actually is, they would have had the problem when he was swinging his stick at people.
Even if you want to believe Binner's time is up, with Colton Ellis gone, the Blues need a goalie tandem, and the options in the AHL are not viable options. St. Louis needs Binnington, and this team is costing him his confidence with their play in front of him.
Pro: Faceoffs
Most people don't care about this, but winning the faceoff battle will usually set you up for success. While that wasn't the case in this game, I think it at least lessened the beating.
Edmonton wasn't able to have quite as much zone time or possession due to the Blues winning the faceoff battle. If you want to view the game as a teaching tool for a team utilizing prospects they hadn't intended to even have in the NHL this year, it was good for that.
There were a lot of shifts where the Oilers got the McDavid line out against the Dvorsky line. The fact that Dalibor Dvorsky won 50% of his faceoffs against one of the league's best centers bodes well for his future in the middle.
Pro: At least attempting shots
There is no doubt the Blues got badly outplayed by the Oilers, and the two teams are not on the same level as far as talent. If we want to look for anything positive, you do have to acknowledge that they were at least trying to create offense.
The biggest issue with yelling at the rink or at the tv for players to shoot is that there often isn't a good shooting lane. The problem is that the Blues often pass up for too long.
In this game, they did try to get pucks through. It just didn't work out. Even though St. Louis was outshot in the first, they had the same number of attempts as the Oilers.
Overall, both teams essentially had the same number of shots. Edmonton had 28, and the Blues had 27.
The stat that gives a tiny glimmer of hope is that the Oilers had 21 blocked shots. That means St. Louis forced their defense to contend with at least 48 pucks, and that doesn't include shots that went wide.
It's not a lot, but when you lose 5-0, it's a stretch to find positives.
Overview:
We've once again entered that area where I wonder why I do this. I like writing, and I love hockey, but this is becoming a chore more than a labor of love.
I truly don't understand how the one thing this team can do consistently is play poorly at the very moment they have to get rolling. You beat two good teams to start a win streak and then get blown out.
That's the disheartening thing with this team. They're not even giving a great effort and coming up just short in the third game after two wins. They aren't coming close to even having a chance to win that third game. Every single time, it's not just a loss, but a blowout loss.
You beat two good teams and then get blown out 7-3 by Chicago. You beat two more good teams and then get blown out 5-0 against Edmonton.
On the one hand, I gave the team credit for at least taking chances to shoot. However, we are faced with the reality that they didn't really force more than a handful of decent saves. There was not a moment when you thought they were on the cusp of scoring or really forcing the goalie to steal the game.
Blame Binnington if you want, but a goalie can only make so much difference for a team that can't score and loses its defensive positioning so easily.