Mistake-prone, undisciplined Blues once again can't get out of their own way in 4-0 loss against Rangers for third straight loss, ninth in 13 games

There was supposed to be some relief, some clarity of the objective once the NHL Trade Deadline came and went on Friday afternoon.

The St. Louis Blues were probably on pins and needles wondering if general manager Doug Armstrong would alter the roster as the team was slumping in the standings.

When Armstrong didn't make any changes, at least to the Blues roster, their objective was simple: get back to playing consistent hockey and become relevant in the chase for the wild card in the Western Conference, only trailing it by six points with 19 games remaining coming into Saturday's game against the New York Rangers.

Well, the more things are supposed to change, the more they stayed the same. The Blues were mistake-prone again, and on this night, they were uncharacteristically undisciplined in allowing three power-play goals, and the offense, while it had chances, especially in the first period, fell flat in a 4-0 loss against the Rangers at Madison Square Garden.

When Armstrong didn't make changes, it was a clear message that he didn't find anything to his liking, for one, and as Armstrong said, nobody was knocking on their door for some of their players.

So the message from him was simple.

"This is the time of year where I hope our players find it being the most enjoyable," Armstrong said Friday. "You should come to the rink with a smile on your face, with the desire and excitement to compete. For whatever reason, we haven't had that desire and compete the last little while. I hope they can find it back because it should be a joyful time. As far as competing, we talked about what does a successful season look like. Part of it is wins and losses."

Well, the wins are not coming, with three straight losses, and the fun obviously isn't there, and it's leading to mistakes -- again by veterans -- and as a result, pucks are winding up in the back of the net.

Such was the case again on Saturday.

Case in point, a Kevin Hayes slashing penalty, literally 36 seconds after the Blues had just killed a Zack Bolduc slashing minor, led to Vincent Trocheck's power-play goal at 5:51 to make it 1-0, and it came after Nick Leddy had a chance to clear a puck from behind his net, and instead of slamming it around the boards and out, he wristed the puck, it was stopped at the blue line, the Rangers kept it in, and the rest is history when Trocheck redirected a puck from slot off Colton Parayko and past Jordan Binnington.