Bruins Outshoot St. Louis 32-18 and Still Lose 4-1. Marco Sturm Calls the First 40 Minutes 'Pretty Bad'

Here's the stat that'll make you squint: the Bruins put 32 shots on goal in St. Louis on Thursday night, and the Blues put up 18. Boston also won 55.6 percent of the faceoffs and threw 29 hits to St. Louis's 15, per the ESPN box score. Final: Blues 4, Bruins 1. Hockey, man.

And Marco Sturm wasn't buying the shot chart either. "Even the games we won lately, we were just making sloppy mistakes, and it finally caught up to us a little bit on this road trip," the Boston coach said, according to NHL.com. "But besides that, the effort today, especially the first 40 minutes, was pretty bad. That for me was the most disappointing thing."

It started fine. At 5:28 of the first, Casey Mittelstadt picked off a Joel Hofer pass up the boards and sent the puck in from the left side, and James Hagens tipped it past the glove. That was Hagens' fifth career goal, and NHL.com notes it tied Phil Kessel (16 games in 2006-07) as the fastest Boston teenager in the past 20 years to five. "It was a heck of a tip and a good start, and obviously it would have been nice to build on it a little bit better than we did," Mittelstadt said.

Then the wheels came off, slowly. Charlie McAvoy went to the box for interference at 15:39 of the first, per the NHL's official game summary, and four seconds later Jimmy Snuggerud one-timed a Philip Broberg feed off a Robert Thomas faceoff win to tie it. That was the Blues' first goal in 139 minutes and 38 seconds, according to NHL.com. Remember, St. Louis came in having been shut out in back-to-back home games.

Second period: Broberg got wide open in the high slot at 5:17 and went bar down on Jeremy Swayman. Thomas made it 3-1 at 12:08 with a wrister into the top corner off a Justin Barron pass. "I haven't shot the puck a lot lately," Thomas said. "It was nice to get in a good area and rip it." Third period: Morgan Geekie took a tripping minor at 12:36, and six seconds later Jake Neighbours slipped a loose puck through Swayman's five-hole on the power play. Ballgame.

So the Blues went 2-for-3 on the power play. Boston went 0-for-2, including a stretch where Hofer himself took a tripping penalty in the third. Hofer stopped 31 of 32, 14 of them in the third period, and got second star. Thomas and Broberg each had a goal and two assists. Swayman made 14 saves on 18 shots, a .778 night, per the box score.

Credit where it's due, St. Louis coach Jim Montgomery was feeling it. His team finished a five-game homestand 3-2-0, and he said the Blues "played the elite in the League." Thomas called Boston "one of the hottest teams in the League." NHL.com also notes it was the Blues' first home win over the Bruins since Game 4 of the 2019 Stanley Cup Final. Yeah. That one. They'd been 0-2-3 against Boston since.

Now zoom out before anybody panics. Boston is 9-4-1 with 19 points, and the NHL's standings feed has the Bruins first in the Atlantic Division and fourth in the league as of Friday, one point up on Montreal (18) and two up on Tampa Bay and Ottawa (17 each). The loss in St. Louis and Tuesday's 2-1 loss at Carolina were the first back-to-back losses after an eight-game point streak (7-0-1), NHL.com says. They're 4-3-1 on the road now.

One lineup note: Connor Clifton was back after being a healthy scratch for seven straight games and played 14:12, with two shots and a minus-1, according to NHL.com.

Dez's take: I don't hate the shot total. I hate how the goals happened. Two power-play goals against, both within seconds of a Bruins penalty, and two even-strength goals where a Blues skater had the high slot to himself. That's exactly the "sloppy mistakes" Sturm said he's been seeing even in wins. When you're winning on goaltending and finishing, and the Bruins have been, the night your goalie doesn't stand on his head shows you the bill. Swayman's been great this year. He wasn't Thursday, and the guys in front of him didn't help.

Next up: the Chicago Blackhawks at TD Garden on Saturday at 1 p.m., then Vegas on Monday night, per the Bruins' official schedule. Two home games to clean it up. What I'll be watching: whether the penalties stop, and whether Sturm goes back to Swayman or gives Michael DiPietro the Saturday matinee.

Still open: who starts in goal Saturday.