The Blues team that played Arizona apparently did not make the trip to Anaheim as the Ducks peppered the Blues early tallying two goals in the first period.
Just 1:37 into the game, Joakim Lindstrom gave up a turnover in the neutral zone right to Anaheim’s Rickard Rakell who moved it quickly off a strange bounce to Matt Beleskey. The puck hit a linesman and took a strange bounce right onto Beleskey’s tape. Beleskey ripped a slap shot over the blocker of Brian Elliott for his fourth goal of the season to make it 1-0 Ducks.
The Blues sustained pressure in the Ducks’ zone during the first period but only managed four shots in the first.
With under three minutes to play in the first period and the power play winding down for Anaheim, Sami Vatanen fired his first of the year past Elliott. Elliott was screened by William Karlsson as rookie Petteri Lindbohm failed to clear Karlsson out from in front of the net.
The Blues best chance of the night came just over three minutes into the second period as Alexander Steen got a shot off in the slot, but Frederik Anderson made a beautiful blocker save to keep the game at 2-0. Magnus Paajarvi also added another good opportunity in the offensive zone in his debut filling in for the injured Paul Statsny, but that too was turned aside.
Then with 14:32 gone in the second period, Maxim Lapierre was sent to the box for tripping putting the Ducks on another power play. Vatanen netted his second goal of the game off the feed from Ryan Getzlaf with 1:05 left on the power play. The Ducks went 2-3 on the power play on the night, and the Blues also suffered in the faceoff dot winning just 23 of 51 faceoffs.
The Blues turned things around in the third period outshooting the Duck 16-6 in the final 20 minutes of play, but Anderson turned each shot away to record his first career shutout.
The Blues have struggled against the Ducks in the past eight games posting an abysmal 0-7-1 record. Elliot made 22 stops on the day, but it was not enough to slow down the Ducks offense. Elliott also has struggled against the Ducks as he falls to 1-5-2 in his career against Anaheim.
With the loss, the Blues fall to 2-2-1 putting them fourth in the Central division. St. Louis will be home on Thursday October 23 to take on the Vancouver Canucks.
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