Recap: Red Wings fall behind early to Blues in 6-2 loss

ST. LOUIS -- For the second consecutive game, the Detroit Red Wings surrendered two goals in the first period, falling to the St. Louis Blues, 6-2, at the Enterprise Center on Thursday night.
The Red Wings defense struggled to contain Nathan Walker, who finished with a hat trick in his first NHL game this season.
A video tribute welcomed Robby Fabbri back to St. Louis for the first time since he was traded to Detroit in Nov. 2019, and the 25-year-old responded with two goals against his former club. This season, he has three goals against the Blues.

In the crease for Detroit, Alex Nedeljkovic made his third straight start on Thursday, but was pulled after two periods and replaced by Thomas Greiss.
Detroit dropped to 13-11-3 this season with the loss while St. Louis improved to 14-8-4.
NEXT UP: Detroit will play the second game of a back-to-back on Friday night as they face the Colorado Avalanche. Puck drop from Ball Arena is set for 9 p.m. ET/7 p.m. MT.

SCORING SUMMARY

Detroit 0, St. Louis 1 (6:17, 1st period)
A shot by Walker deflected off the skate of Danny DeKeyser and snuck through Nedeljkovic to put the Blues ahead, 1-0. Brayden Schenn and Dearborn, Mich., native Dakota Joshua both tallied assists.
Detroit 0, St. Louis 2 (16:47, 1st period)
St. Louis extended its lead late in the first period after Colton Parayko played the puck off the boards to Ryan O'Reilly, who dished the puck to the late-trailing Niko Mikkola. Walker received the feed from Mikkola and scored to extend the Blues' lead to two goals headed into the first intermission.
Detroit 1, St. Louis 2 (4:17, 2nd period)
The Red Wings got on the board when Moritz Seider fed the puck through O'Reilly's legs to Dylan Larkin, who dumped the puck to Lucas Raymond. A quick, behind-the-back tap from Raymond found Fabbri and he fired the puck past Blues goalie Charlie Lindgren for his sixth goal of the season.

Detroit 1, St. Louis 3 (16:01, 2nd period)
The Blues made it a two-goal game again as Parayko poked in the rebound off a Mikkola shot to make it a 3-1 score. Joshua was also credited with an assist.
Detroit 1, St. Louis 4 (9:17, 3rd period)
After he was held scoreless in the second period, Walker netted the first hat trick of his career in the third period to make it a 4-1 game in favor of St. Louis. Marco Scandella and Torey Krug both had an assist.
Detroit 1, St. Louis 5 (10:01, 3rd period)
Ivan Barbashev, assisted by Pavel Buchnevich and Krug, scored his ninth goal of the season to give St. Louis a four-goal advantage.
Detroit 2, St. Louis 5 (15:27, 3rd Period)
A stretch pass caught the Blues by surprise and a backhanded shot from Fabbri gave Detroit its second goal of the night. It was Fabbri's seventh goal this season. Raymond recorded his 14th assist of the season while Filip Hronek tallied his 11th assist.

Detroit 2, St. Louis 6 (19:54, 3rd period)
On an empty net, Scandella scored unassisted during the final seconds of Thursday's game.

Jeff Blashill on his takeaways from Detroit's 6-2 loss against the Blues

"I thought we started real good. I think it was one of those nights, through two periods, where the puck went in for them and it didn't go in for us. I thought they were harder at the net. They had better net presence than us. That's the one thing when you look at all their goals and they did a real good job at the net. I thought we lost our game a little bit in the third, especially in our own zone, a couple of big breakdowns. It wasn't a game where I was disappointed with our effort."

Robby Fabbri on his thoughts of Detroit's performance

"It was another tough one, another tough start by us. Digging ourselves a hole like last game, that's tough to come out of. It's nice we get to turn around and we have another match tomorrow to try to turn this around."