Maple Leafs lose second straight

Pucks were flying in for the Toronto Maple Leafs through seven games, with a couple of the final scores looking like something out of the 1980s instead of 2018.

They’re quickly learning that nothing comes easy for very long in today’s NHL.

Jake Allen made 22 saves and Ryan O’Reilly scored his first goal with St. Louis as the Blues ground out a 4-1 victory over Toronto on Saturday.

The visitors kept the Leafs to the outside much of the night — Toronto had just eight shots through two periods — in handing the pre-season Stanley Cup favourites a second consecutive loss following five straight wins.

“We scored early, we scored easy, it was pretty loose and everything was great,” Leafs head coach Mike Babcock said of his team’s league-high 33 goals in starting 6-10. “Now we’re finding out it’s the NHL, it’s hard to score, teams compete hard on you, teams adjust and they’re going to play you hard. We’ve got to get our mojo back by going to work and we’ll do that. “Not good enough.” Robert Bortuzzo, Zach Sanford and Ivan Barbashev, into an empty net, had the other goals for St. Louis (2-3-2), which picked up just its second victory of 201819. David Perron chipped in with a pair of assists, while O’Reilly had another for a two-point night.

Morgan Rielly replied for Toronto (6-30). Frederik Andersen stopped 21 shots for the Leafs, who were shut out 3-0 by the Pittsburgh Penguins on Thursday.

“There have been some adjustments by our opponents,” said Toronto centre John Tavares, who finished with two shot attempts. “We have to stick to what we do well and can’t get away from it. We know teams are going to adjust and teams are going to try and make it tough on us.”

Toronto beat the Los Angeles Kings 4-1 on Monday but, after getting blanked by Pittsburgh and being held of the scoresheet through two periods Saturday, went 116 minutes 37 seconds without a goal until Rielly cut the Blues’ lead to 3-1 early in the third.