The St. Louis Blues were under pressure early in their season.

It’s not the usual way to win consistently, but it worked in wins against the Seattle Kraken (3-2) and the San Jose Sharks (5-4 in overtime) earlier in the season.

However, this was a different animal. These were the Vegas Golden Knights, a benchmark team of sorts, but the Blues found themselves in a familiar situation despite scoring first goal for the first time this season.

They trailed by multiple goals again, 3-1 in that game, and tried to make NHL history by becoming the first team to open with three straight wins after multiple goals, but fell short Friday at T-Mobile Arena 4:3.

Let’s move on to the observations of a game in which the Blues, despite playing the second round in a row, remained in the fight until the end:

* FIRST PERIOD – After playing in OT Thursday, the thinking was that Vegas would try to run the Blues out of the building early in the game in an attempt to strain a tired Blues team that had to muster a lot of energy Thursday after going 1-1. 4-down to make the comeback in the third period.

But it was the Blues who got off to a solid start. They managed the puck well and didn’t spend much time in their zone.

It all culminated in the Blues opening the scoring for the first time this season when Pavel Buchnevich, who led them with two goals and an assist, made it 1-0 at 6:47.

Buchnevich showed a lot of patience and allowed Vegas defender Noah Hanifin to overcommit, allowing Buchnevich to cut to his backhand and lift Adin Hill off the side with a nice glove.

The Blues haven’t played with a lead much this season. And they didn’t play much with one here after Jack Eichel made it 1-1 at 8:07.

So what happened here was that the Blues had possession and were circling the puck around the wall from left to right, but when the Blues came in on the forecheck, Brayden Schenn and Jake Neighbors each went to Brayden McNabb and were slow to get there, now vulnerable to a chip-out and an odd-man break.

Colton Parayko couldn’t close the gap at the blue line, hesitating whether to move up or retreat, and once he makes the decision to retreat, Vegas can attack quickly.

Now Parayko is out of position because Nick Leddy moves to his right to pick up his old friend Ivan Barbashev, who slides a pass into Eichel’s stride while Parayko is about a step behind, and such an elite player calmly pulls the puck to his backhand and pushes it past Jordan Binnington.

Mistake #2 leads to 18:13 by Barbashev, giving Vegas a 2-1 lead for good.

Again the Blues have control of the puck and Schenn moves it along the wall behind the goal to Jake Neighbors, who fails to protect it and lets it bounce away. Again, it feeds what Vegas loves most: transition.

They can move it freely across the ice as Ryan Suter and PO Joseph, making his Blues debut, fall back. With the forwards a step behind, Brayden Schenn is trying with all his might to get back, and Joseph is stuck between a rock and a hard place: attack Mark Stone hard along the goal line or take the pass away from where Barbashev was lurking? Joseph was caught in the middle, Stone played Barbashev with a clever little move and he beat his old friend Binnington to make it 2-1.

* SECOND PERIOD – Zack Bolduc had the first glorious chance to tie the game again in the first two minutes of the quarter when he was sent into the field after Jordan Kyrou’s precise shot at Adin Hill. But Bolduc’s backhand through the five-hole was blocked by Hill.

At that point, another mistake by the Blues helped Vegas extend its lead to 3-1. This time too, Nick Leddy came, who also had a difficult game in San Jose.

After a shot from the right point hit Colton Parayko, Leddy tried to force a pass to an unsuspecting Radek Faksa instead of throwing it off the glass into the open, the puck hit him in the back of the skates, stayed in the zone and Theodore rose at 2:55 into a clapper.

These are mistakes that their top skaters make, and the Blues can’t get away with any of them, if any.

But they didn’t want to disappear despite the strong Vegas presence around Jordan Binnington.

Buchnevich’s second goal of the game was another beauty as he scored off a cross pass from Kyrou at 7:29 to make the score 3-2.

Vegas was much more aggressive in the middle 20 minutes than in the first period, but Binnington made 12 of his 24 saves in the second period to keep the Blues relevant.

* THIRD PERIOD – The Blues were just a shot away from leveling the game, and while they handled the period fairly well, they simply never managed to get many dangerous or quality looks at Hill.

There was still enough time to equalize, but the last and final fatal error proved costly.

When Nicolas Roy redirected Theodore’s left-footed shot past Binnington at 12:53, the score was 4-2, effectively putting that shot out of reach.

After Suter and Robert Thomas tried to force a puck out of the corner, it landed free at the right time to another old friend – Alex Pietrangelo. The Vegas defender immediately pushed the ball to Theodore at the left point, and Theodore immediately recognized that Roy and Victor Olafsson were alone at the net in front of Binnington. By the time Suter was able to pull away, the Vegas forwards were uncontested in Binnington’s kitchen and Joseph was completely out of position on the play.

However, they weren’t dead yet as Buchnevich sent Thomas on a breakaway and he scored a nice goal at 15:04, making the game 4-3.

They continue to show great resilience, but on this night against a tough opponent it was too big a mountain to climb, although they did have a second chance on the power play when Hanifin was whistled for delay of game at 15:48.

The good thing about the trip is that the Blues don’t give up on their games, no matter what the result. If they want to be taken seriously, they need to eliminate some of the mistakes made, especially by experienced players, as coach Drew Bannister and player comments below demonstrate:

Related: GAME REVIEW: The St. Louis Blues fall to the Vegas Golden Knights for the first time this season, 4-3

Related: St. Louis Blues Player Of The Game vs. Vegas Golden Knights: Pavel Buchnevich