OTTAWA, Ontario (AP) - Anders Nilsson took the blame for the Ottawa Senators staying winless.
Nilsson stopped 31 shots in his first start of the season as Ottawa fell to the Stanley Cup champion St. Louis Blues 6-4 on Thursday night.
“It’s a lot of goals, I feel like I want back,” Nilsson said. “If I do a better job on my part and do my job a little better, we would have had the two points.”
David Perron’s second goal of the game proved to be the winner for the Blues. The goal was also Perron’s 200th NHL goal.
Oskar Sundqvist, Jay Bouwmeester, Brayden Schenn also scored for the Blues. Ryan O’Reilly had a goal and three assists and Jake Allen made 25 saves in his season debut.
Vitaly Abramov, Artem Anisimov, Chris Tierney and Anthony Duclair scored for the Senators (0-3-0), who are off to their worst start after losing three straight games in regulation.
Overall the Senators played a stronger, harder game and had a chance to win, but in the end came up short.
“I thought we did a good job half the game,” Tierney said. “Sometimes we were putting the puck in, getting pucks deep, getting on the forecheck and creating plays and other times we were careless with it and it ends up in the back of our net. We’ve got to clean up some areas defensively.”
Perron broke a 4-all tie with less than five minutes remaining and O’Reilly sealed the win with an empty-net goal.
“We just seemed to get a couple bounces,” said O’Reilly. “Last year, it felt like at the beginning of the year every kind of bounce that could go wrong did and we couldn’t find a way to close games out, but it’s a different year and we’ve improved.”
The Blues made it 3-3 early in the third as Bouwmeester fired from just inside the blue line, through traffic, and beat Nilsson between the pads.
St. Louis got its first lead at the 12-minute mark of the third when a giveaway by the Senators gave Schenn a breakaway. Less than two minutes later Ottawa tied it at 4-all as Duclair took a pass in the slot and beat Allen.
Trailing 2-0, Perron got the Blues on the board with a power-play goal midway through the second.
The Blues tied the game as Sundqvist grabbed a loose puck off the faceoff and got a wrist shot off that beat Nilsson low on the glove side. The Senators regained the lead late in the period as Tierney, with his first of the season, scored shorthanded.
Ottawa took a 2-0 lead in the final minute of the first period as Anisimov fired a one-timer from the slot for his first goal with the Senators. Vladislav Namestnikov, acquired Monday by the Senators, had an assist on the play.
Ottawa opened the scoring midway through the first as Scott Sabourin fed Abramov, who had a wide-open net, for his first NHL goal.
NOTES: Ottawa D Cody Goloubef and LW Mikkel Boedker were healthy scratches. … The Blues were without C Robert Thomas (upper body), while D Carl Gunnarsson and LW Mackenzie MacEachern were healthy scratches.
UP NEXT
Blues: At Montreal on Saturday night.
Senators: Home against Tampa Bay on Saturday.
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