Blues lay an egg in 5-1 home loss to Wild

Except the Blues didn’t go anywhere once the game started. Once again, they fell behind early. And once again, their high-scoring offense couldn’t get going in a 5-1 loss to the Minnesota Wild on Friday at Enterprise Center.

The Blues are halfway down the road to elimination in their opening round playoff series against the Wild.

Getting behind the St. Louis defense repeatedly, the Wild were up 2-0 before most fans (of drinking age) had finished off that first malted beverage. This one was a dud of a game in every way imaginable. At least in St. Paul on Wednesday, the Blues kept pushing, had lots of chances, and made things interesting for a while in the third period. Nothing in any way like that happened Friday.

Coach Craig Berube mentioned time after time leading up to the game that he wanted the Blues to get some net front traffic and make Marc-Andre Fleury work a little harder in goal for Minnesota. Didn’t happen. The Blues rarely ventured to the net front.

So they’re down two games to one in the best-of-seven series with Game 4 scheduled for 3:30 p.m. Sunday at Enterprise Center. If the Blues don’t get their act together quickly, that could be the final home game of the season.

Playing before the first postseason full house since Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Final against Boston, the Blues haven’t won a postseason game at Enterprise since Game 4 of that Cup Final (4-2 Blues, June 3, 2019, two goals by Ryan O’Reilly). It’s just four home losses in a row, but it seems like a lot more.

It was the first home loss against the Wild in eight games since Berube took over as head coach.

Things couldn’t have started worse for St. Louis. The Blues got immediate zone time and pressure right off the opening faceoff. But Minnesota busted out the other way on a 2-on-1, with only Marco Scandella back on defense.

That’s right, Marco Scandella. He returned to the lineup after missing the first two games of the series with a lower-body injury that carried over from the end of the regular season.

In any event, Scandella dived to block a crossing pass but was unsuccessful. Jordan Greenway scored through the backdoor and it was 1-0 Wild just 39 seconds into the contest.

Next came two breakaways by the Wild, and they scored on the first one. Kirill Kaprizov had the first breakaway and missed his shot. But Kaprizov hustled back for the puck behind the net, and while Ville Husso was getting up, Kaprizov fired the puck off Husso’s skate and in — 2-0 Minnesota, just 2:18 into the game.

At the 5:22 mark, Brayden Schenn was whistled for charging Jacob Middleton behind the St. Louis net. It was quite a hit by Schenn, who was a heat-seeking missile in the period. The Blues avoided further disaster by killing off the penalty.

They had some good possession time and good chances against Fleury getting 14 shots on goal. But they couldn’t get one past Fleury.

The Blues had a staggering total of 21 hits in the opening period — to Minnesota’s five — and most of them weren’t love taps.

Scandella’s return gave them four of the top six defensemen in the lineup; Steven Santini, called up Thursday from Springfield, was a healthy scratch. But for the second game in a row, they came out of the opening period with only three of their top six D-men playing — and five defensemen total — when Torey Krug left the ice limping after delivering one of those 21 hits on Matt Boldy.

Krug did not return with what the team said was a lower-body injury. He may have aggravated an earlier injury, because he had a large ice pack on his knee after the team’s regular-season road finale against Colorado.

In the second period, Minnesota picked up its checking game, and the Blues’ high-powered offense got stuck in neutral. They got very little zone time, and when they got a shot off, it was usually one-and-done.

Meanwhile, the Wild padded their lead — once again getting behind the Blues for an odd-man rush. This time it was Mats Zuccarrello scoring off a 2-on-1 break at the 7:44 mark to make it a 3-0 Minnesota lead.

The Blues got a power play with 3:52 left in the period when Matt Dumba was whistled for interfering with David Perron. With Krug no longer available to quarterback the No. 1 power play unit, the Blues went with a five-forward formation with Vladimir Tarasenko joining the group from the second unit.

But the Blues got little going — at least in the first 1:33 of the power play. That’s when the power play became a 4-on-4 because Pavel Buchnevich was called for interference.

Just 22 seconds into the third period, the Blues found themselves trailing 4-0 for the second game in a row. Joel Eriksson Ek was left all by his lonesome in the slot and scored his third goal of the series.

The Blues got another power play opportunity early in the third when Minnesota captain Jared Spurgeon was called for tripping Perron. And this time they cashed in. O’Reilly went iron-in from the right circle for his second goal of the series, making it a 4-1 game at the 2:17 mark of the third.

Jonas Brodin scored an empty-netter for Minnesota to make it 5-1.