As roster gets gutted, Blues players know they have only themselves to blame

After years in the penthouse, or awfully close to it, the Blues are finding out how the other half lives. They’re roster is being gutted, the playoffs are a pipe dream. And worst of all — they know they did it to themselves.

“It’s a situation that we put ourselves in, left ourselves open to these decisions for management to make,” defenseman Justin Faulk said. “And we have to live with it.”

Life without Ryan O’Reilly began Saturday afternoon against Colorado — and it wasn’t pretty in a 4-1 loss to the Avalanche at Enterprise Center.

The Avalanche, as usual, were quick and talented. The Blues were outmanned. Thanks in large part to some strong goaltending by Jordan Binnington, the Blues hung in there for two periods against the defending Stanley Cup champions.

Sammy Blais made it a 2-1 Blues deficit late in the second with his second goal in two games since being shipped back to St. Louis as part of the Vladimir Tarasenko trade to the New York Rangers.

But Valeri Nichushkin scored early in the third period for the Avs, Bowen Byram added his second goal of the afternoon midway through the period, and that pretty much was that. Both the Colorado third-period goals came on the power play.

“I felt like we were right in it,” Robert Thomas said. “Missed a couple shots a couple of us would like back. I had one. They scored on their power plays and we didn’t score on ours, and that was the difference.”

Without team captain O’Reilly, Thomas wore an “A” on his jersey Saturday afternoon — joining usual alternate captains Brayden Schenn and Colton Parayko.

The Blues (26-26-3) lacked the aggressiveness they had shown in recent games since the All-Star/bye week break. If not timid, they seemed at least wary of Colorado’s speed and skating ability.

“I didn’t think that we really forechecked that well today to be honest with you,” coach Craig Berube said. “Transition game — defense-to-offense — was slow. We just watched. We didn’t get up the ice quick enough. We didn’t play aggressively and ‘north’ enough. ... I didn’t see the same energy and fight that we’ve had lately.”

Perhaps some of that had to do with the trade that sent O’Reilly and forward Noel Acciari to the Toronto Maple Leafs in exchange for three draft picks and a couple of minor-leaguers late Friday night.

“I think it was just a lot of emotion,” Schenn said. “From last night, the trade happened so late, the group chat goes off and you’re texting and calling each other at 10:30, 11 o’clock at night.

“You come to the rink the next day at 10 a.m. right? Shock when you see the news, you just love playing with those guys so much that it sucks seeing them go. That’s the reality of what we did to ourselves this year, including those guys that obviously all got traded.

“We gave Doug (Armstrong) a chance to go this route, which is on the players, it’s on us.”

So the Blues were outmanned in Saturday’s game, and not just because of the trades that have sent Tarasenko, O’Reilly, Acciari and Niko Mikkola all packing in little more than a week.

Defenseman Torey Krug was a game-day scratch with an undisclosed injury; he was replaced by veteran Robert Bortuzzo in the lineup.

During the game, Pavel Buchnevich left in the first period with a lower-body injury, returned for the second, but then left before that period ended and was done for the day.

The Blues also lost Logan Brown in the third period; he fell face-first on the ice after getting dumped by Colorado’s Andreas Englund behind the Avalanche net. Brown left with a bloody face; after the game he had stitches over his left eye and a cut on the bridge of his nose.

So the Blues finished the game with just 10 forwards.

“I think he’s fine,” Berube said of Brown.

Berube said Buchnevich was day-to-day and would not accompany the team to Ottawa, where the Blues play Sunday afternoon. Krug is accompanying the team, but his status is uncertain for the Senators.

“We’ll see how he is tomorrow,” Berube said. “If he can go — great. If not, same D.”

The Blues have called up Nikita Alexandrov and Matthew Highmore from Springfield of the American Hockey League; both are scheduled to join the team in Ottawa.

In the big picture, that’s the hand the Blues have dealt themselves. They’ll be going with a lot of youngsters for the final 27 games of the season.

“We’re not going to roll over and just fade away,” Thomas said. “We’ve had a lot of injuries this year and we’ve found a way to win. That’s been the Blues culture for a while — there’s no give-up and you just keep on fighting.

“That’s the way we’re going to approach it. We like being the underdogs.”