Blues' winning streak ends with loss at home

ST. LOUIS -- Blues coach Joel Quenneville sensed St. Louis was vulnerable before the team played the Columbus Blue Jackets.

Riding the crest of a nine-game winning streak and returning home following a three-game road trip, Quenneville said he suspected his team would have a tough time.

He was right.

Andrew Cassels scored twice and Ray Whitney added a goal and two assists as the Blue Jackets beat the Blues 5-2 Thursday night.

"We said this was a dangerous game coming out," Quenneville said. "We're coming off as good as I've seen us play. Whether it was a mental letdown or playing five games in eight days, we weren't as effective."

St. Louis fell one game short of the club record for consecutive victories set last season. It was the first Blues' loss since they dropped the season opener to Anaheim. At 9-2-1-0, the Blues are off to their best start in franchise history.

"We knew this would be a vulnerable game after being on a real high and being on a road trip," St. Louis center Doug Weight said. "The first game back is always a tough game. Mixed with the way we played these guys the last time, you knew they were going to come out hard."

It was the first home loss for the Blues against the Blue Jackets (1-5-1) in Columbus' three seasons. St. Louis earned a 7-1 victory on Oct. 17 by scoring four power-play goals.

It was the first road victory this season for the Blue Jackets, who finished last season with an eight-game road winless streak.

"The last time we came in here, they gave it to us real good and we were pretty embarrassed about that game," Cassels said. "We knew they were playing real well right now and we knew we would have to bring our best game tonight to be able to play with them."

Columbus scored two power-play goals in six chances. In the last four games, the Blue Jackets are 9-for-28 with the man advantage. The Blue Jackets held a 31-28 shots edge over St. Louis, which had five power plays.

"Our power play has been good all year from the start of the season on," Columbus coach Dave King said. "It's been staying solid and we've got some pretty good people there. Our penalty killing is mainly where we're getting some really good goaltending. Marc's (Denis) making some huge saves for us on those situations and that's helped our penalty-killing."

The Blue Jackets scored two power-play goals in the second period to take a 3-1 lead. Derrick Walser beat goalie Fred Brathwaite on a slap shot from the point at 9:21, and Cassels scored when the puck deflected in off his skate at 17:57.

St. Louis cut it to 3-2 on Eric Boguniecki's second goal with 6:43 left in the third period. Boguniecki scored his eighth goal in 11 games when he put in a rebound of a shot by Alexander Khavanov.

"You don't expect anything but the best from the team that's just won nine in a row and trailing by two in their building," Denis said. "We knew that they'd come hard at us but we responded the way we wanted to. When they got that second goal off the rebound, that didn't faze us at all."

Whitney scored 43 seconds later, giving Columbus a 4-2 lead. In his last four games, he has three goals and four assists.

Cassels added an empty-net goal with 2:15 left.

Boguniecki scored at 7:17 of the first period when he took a pass from Weight and snapped off a shot from the right circle that beat Denis. Cory Stillman assisted on the goal, giving him 300 career points.

Geoff Sanderson scored his sixth goal of the season when he deflected a shot from Jaroslav Spacek at 17:03 to tie it at 1.

Noteworthy

G Tom Barrasso, 37, dressed for the first time since signing with the Blues on Nov. 4. He played with Carolina and Toronto last season and went 15-14-5. ... St. Louis assigned D Christian Laflamme and G Cody Rudkowsky to Worcester of the AHL. ... The Blue Jackets (6-5-1-1) are above .500 for just the second time in franchise history. The only other time was after Columbus won the season opener this year.