Blues suffer 5-4 loss before sparse crowd

ST. LOUIS -- Jordin Tootoo's first goal of the season snapped a tie early in the third period, helping the Nashville Predators win their fourth straight game with a 5-4 victory over the St. Louis Blues on Thursday night.

Scott Hartnell scored his fourth goal in three games and had an assist for the Central Division leaders, who are 8-0-1 against the Blues the last two seasons and followed up on a 3-2 victory at Philadelphia on Wednesday. Paul Kariya added his sixth goal and David Legwand got his seventh.

The game drew an announced attendance of 5,410, the fifth-lowest in franchise history, held down by daylong snow and sleet that hampered traffic. The actual attendance appeared to be several thousand people fewer than that, with some upper-deck sections empty and mere handfuls of fans in some lower-bowl sections.

Keith Tkachuk's seventh goal snapped a four-game drought without a point for St. Louis, which lost its third in a row despite ending an offensive slump. The Blues had totaled one goal in their previous two games and outshot the Predators 42-17.

Bill Guerin scored his second goal of the game with 1:13 to go, his first goals in 10 games.

Tootoo had only one assist in 23 games before steaming down the right wing and beating Manny Legace with a slap shot between the legs at 5:36 of the third, his first goal since March 24, 2006, at Anaheim. Tootoo leads the team with 35 penalty minutes.

Alexander Radulov tapped the puck out of Legace's glove and into the net with 6:40 to go for a two-goal gap, chasing Legace.

Guerin gave the Blues their first goal on a 5-on-3 advantage in seven opportunities all season at 14:29 of the second period, tying the score at 3. St. Louis ended a 1-for-33 slump overall on the power play and ended a run of 20 consecutive penalty kills by the Predators over five games.

The Blues scored early in the first two periods. Tkachuk connected on the game's first shot at 58 seconds of the first and Jay McClement scored at 2:19 of the second to tie it at 2.

Noteworthy

• Defenseman Jay McKee returned for St. Louis and played only his second game of the season. He missed the first six games with a knee injury and then missed 16 games with a broken right hand sustained on Oct. 20 against the Canucks after playing only 1:15.

The Predators had outscored their opponents 33-11 in the second period before the Blues outscored them 2-1 on Thursday.

Kariya has two goals and four assists in the last four games.