Justin Faulk scored for the Blues (14-16-8), who were 2-0-1 in their previous three. Jordan Binnington made 13 saves.
“Tonight we played a good, well-structured team that got ahead on us and gave us nothing,” St. Louis captain Brayden Schenn said. “So, we feel like we’re building as a team, we’re playing more consistently, but at the end of the day, tonight we weren’t good enough.”
Pontus Holmberg scored 21 seconds into the first period to give Tampa Bay a 1-0 lead. He redirected the puck past Binnington from the right hash marks after Raddysh sent it in from the right point.
“It was a good start for us. Whenever you can get a goal on the first shift, I think that’s a momentum boost for all of us,” Guentzel said. “We had to build on the last two periods of the last game. That was our mindset coming in.”
Raddysh then made it 2-0 with a power-play goal at 9:12. He scored on a one-timer from the point off a pass from Kucherov, with his shot deflecting in off of Faulk at the left post.
Faulk cut it to 2-1 at 6:43 of the second period with a slap shot from just inside the blue line off a pass from Tyler Tucker with traffic in front.
“It was a good measuring stick for us,” Faulk said. “I think it showed us we’ve got more to go and we think so too. We took a lot of penalties (four). It makes it hard. They’re going to find a way eventually it seems, so you want to try to limit them as much as possible.”
It was Faulk’s 10th goal of the season and fourth in his past six games.
“He’s been really good all year long,” Blues coach Jim Montgomery said of the defenseman. “I thought tonight he was by far our best player. You want to make things happen when you’re on the ice and he made a lot happen out there.”
Anthony Cirelli extended the Tampa Bay lead to 3-1 at 8:01 when his redirection of a point shot by Raddysh skipped past Binnington.