The St. Louis Blues were on fire after making a coaching change last month, but things have suddenly gone downhill in a major way.

The Blues' 3-0 loss to the Winnipeg Jets on Friday night was their fifth-straight defeat, a skid that comes immediately after the club won seven of its first eight games under new head coach Mike Yeo.

“This should be a good slap in the face for us,” Yeo said postgame, according to the Jeremy Rutherford of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “I don’t know. I get the sense that sometimes we just assume, just think, that things are going to turn around for us."

St. Louis was sitting comfortably in third place in the Central Division following a torrid stretch last month, but the wheels have fallen off since.

The Blues are once again outside the playoff picture, back where they were just prior to Ken Hitchcock's firing on Feb. 1, sitting six points behind the Nashville Predators for third in the Central and one point back of the Los Angeles Kings for the second Western Conference wild-card spot.

So what's gone wrong?

It's mostly been bad luck. Of St. Louis' four losses prior to Friday's defeat, three were by a single goal, and the other one, a 4-2 win by the Chicago Blackhawks, was only decided by a two-goal margin because Tanner Kero scored an empty netter with three seconds left.

Friday's three-goal margin was aided by two empty-net tallies from the Jets.

The Blues' goaltending, which was their Achilles heel before the coaching change, improved drastically when Yeo took over and has continued to thrive.

Jake Allen has rediscovered his form and backup Carter Hutton has also been reliable lately, posting three shutouts in four games before stopping 38-of-39 shots in a losing effort Friday night.

Kevin Shattenkirk was traded to the Washington Capitals on Tuesday, and his departure leaves a gaping hole in both ends of the rink. It hasn't made a major impact yet (admittedly in a small sample size), but it will certainly be worth monitoring how the Blues make up for his absence.

St. Louis won the puck possession battle in Tuesday's 2-1 loss to the Edmonton Oilers and kept it close to even Friday night in Winnipeg.

(Courtesy: Corsica Hockey)

The Blues have the easiest remaining schedule in the NHL, according to Rutherford, but they'll need to covert more of their one-goal games into wins if they hope to play deep into the spring.

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