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Three Takeaways From Blues' 3-1 Loss Against Jets

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St. Louis Blues forward Jordan Kyrou (25) battles Winnipeg Jets defenseman Haydn Fleury on Monday. (James Carey Lauder-Imagn Images)

All good things must come to an end, and for the St. Louis Blues, a franchise record came to an end on Monday.

The Winnipeg Jets ended the Blues' record 12-game winning streak with a defensive clinic, winning a knock-em-out, drag-em-out 3-1 victory at Canada Life Centre.

Alex Iafallo's rebound goal at 7:05 of the third period snapped a 1-all tie and enabled the Jets (53-21-4) to end the Blues' streak and keep them from clinching a playoff spot in the process and dropping their record to 43-29-7.

Pavel Buchnevich scored for the fourth time in five games, and Joel Hofer had himself a steady performance with 23 saves.

The Blues' lead on the Minnesota Wild remains two points, but the Wild now have a game in hand and hold the tie-breaker with regulation wins (33-31), so the Blues will all but likely need to have more points than Minnesota in the battle for the first wild card.

Let's dive into Monday's Three Takeaways:

* Blues didn't handle Jets pressure -- For the first time in quite some time, the Blues seemed a bit overwhelmed.

The Jets came out with a plan of attack with a forechecking style and had the Blues hemmed in the zone for large swaths of the game.

The Blues have been good at puck retrievals and moving it out of the zone effectively, especially during this 12-game run, but the Jets seemed to be a step ahead and disrupted a lot of the play, hemmed the Blues in their own end, retrieved pucks and kept pressure on, especially in the first period when shots were 8-3 and 31-8 on attempts.

What the Blues did do well was block shots (14 in the first period) and kept the Jets away from Grade A scoring opportunities, and when Hofer was called upon, he stood his ground.

The Blues pushed back in the second period and played pretty evenly there, and got an equalizing goal from Buchnevich on what amounted to be the line with Robert Thomas and Jimmy Snuggerud, their best shift of the game to that point, but the Jets were able to get back on the front foot again in the third and limited the Blues to four shots while putting on pressure in all three zones and again clogging the middle of the ice.

On the Buchnevich goal, Thomas, who was named the NHL's third star of the week last week, did extend his point streak to nine games (four goals, 16 assists).

The Blues just had trouble for large portions of the game moving through the three zones and when they did, the Jets were right in their face to disrupt the flow. There simply wasn't any time or space out there.

* Two costly mistakes; in a game like this, Blues didn't KISS -- In what amounted to be a playoff type of feel to it, this game had all the earmarks of just playing a simple, play-it-safe, chip pucks and go on the hunt, not risky types of plays.

And it amounted to be just that, but two costly errors in a game where scoring chances were going to be limited proved to be the fatal pills to swallow for the Blues.

On the first, the Blues had, for one of the few times after being overwhelmed in the first period, possession of the puck in the offensive zone and near the blue lineCam Fowler gave the puck to Mathieu Joseph, and instead of making a 'KISS' play (Keep It Simple Stupid), perhaps just whipping it down low and allow the forecheckers to go to work, Joseph tried a return flip pass, and a stick from Josh Morrissey broke it up and Morgan Marron was off to the races down the right side.

Joseph was in pursuit, but Barron fought off Joseph and cut to the net and buried a shot low to the far side at 2:34 of the second period for a 1-0 Winnipeg lead.

And despite being outplayed for a good stretch, in a 1-1 game in the third period, the Jets had a hard forecheck in progress again, but the Blues were able to move the puck to the wall and get it away from danger and onto the stick of Buchnevich. Again, 'KISS' ... flip it out of the zone and reload, move it along the wall, not make that flip pass towards the middle of the ice. Well, that's what he tried to do, it got picked off and Iafallo knocked in a rebound at 7:27 for a 2-1 lead.

This game had all the earmarks that it needed to be a safe kind of a period, manage the game properly, get it to overtime, get a crucial point and fight for a second one, which they've been able to do.

Once the Jets got that go-ahead marker, it just felt like they would lock the remainder of the game down and that's what they did.

When the Blues did pull Hofer, they did have some good sustained zone time, but there were simply no shooting lanes. The Jets clogged the middle and made the ice as mucky as possible. Buchnevich did have a big chance late but hit Connor Hellebuyck in the chest with the chance to tie.

* Faksa line provided consistent forecheck -- On a positive note, I liked the play of Radek Faksa, Alexey Toropchenko and Nathan Walker in this game and coach Jim Montgomery rewarded that trio with 14:27, 14:38 and 16:06 of ice time, respectively.

The Blues had just 15 shots on goal in the game, which matched a season low, and that group had 33 percent of them.

The first period in particular, when the Blues could not generate anything offensively, when the Faksa line stepped onto the ice, it played the game to its strengths: get pucks deep, go to work, play below the goal line, force the Jets to work and they did.

Faksa had an early two-shot chance early in the second period to actually put the Blues ahead by driving the net but was stopped. The game was played to this line's strengths and I thought this trio played it to a tee and did exactly what it needed to do to have success.

* Hear what Montgomery and Buchnevich and Brayden Schenn had to say after the game:

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