It took time for the marriage between O'Reilly and the Blues to start working.
St. Louis acquired O'Reilly in a trade from the Sabres on July 1 for forwards Patrik Berglund, Vladimir Sobotka and Tage Thompson, a first-round pick in the 2019 NHL Draft and a second-round pick in the 2021 NHL Draft.
Optimism was running rampant in St. Louis after the acquisition of O'Reilly and the free-agent signings of forwards Tyler Bozak, David Perron and Pat Maroon. It didn't last long.
The Blues were last in the NHL on the morning of Jan. 3, and O'Reilly, who was leading St. Louis with 35 points (15 goals, 20 assists) through 37 games, was wondering if he was the problem, if he was the reason losing was following him around the NHL.
He made the Stanley Cup Playoffs twice in his first six NHL seasons (2009-15) with the Colorado Avalanche and never came close in his three seasons in Buffalo (2015-18). The Sabres finished last in the League last season with 62 points.
And now the Blues were last too.
"Coming from a bad year, coming over here and having a great team and not doing it at the start, yeah, I felt I was a big part of the reason why we were losing and needed to do something," O'Reilly said. "I was trying to reevaluate what's going on, how I'm a guy that's playing a ton of minutes on this team and we're not winning. It was very frustrating."