Blues losing streak continues after ‘home stand from hell’

The losses are piling up for the St. Louis Blues, and so, too, is the frustration.

Jeff Carter scored twice for the L.A. Kings in a 4-1 road win Monday over the Blues, who have now lost five straight games – one of which was a shootout loss – to start the month of February.

During the last four losses – all on home ice – the Blues have given up 20 goals in regulation time and scored only eight.

The Blues four-game home stand resulted in nothing but defeat. Not one single win.

“This is the home stand from hell,” head coach Ken Hitchcock told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “We lost our goalie, we didn’t play as well and now we’ve got to take this onto the road and we’ve got to be much more accountable to each other.”

Blues goalie Jaroslav Halak, who missed the last three games with a strained groin, was supposed to start against the Kings. Halak took warm-ups, but re-aggravated the injury, forcing Brian Elliott to come in as the emergency starter.

“It happened so quick, it was after warm-ups,” Hitchcock told Chris Pinkert on the team’s website. “It is what it is. He had two or three really good days of practice, and I don’t know, somewhere in the warmup he pulled it again.”

An update could come Tuesday, Pinkert reported.