ST. LOUIS — Jordan Kyrou and Brayden Schenn each had a goal and two assists for the St. Louis Blues in a 6-3 win against the Montreal Canadiens at Enterprise Center on Saturday.
Brandon Saad and Robert Thomas each had a goal and an assist, and Joel Hofer made 30 saves for St. Louis (5-4-1), who have won two straight, including 4-1 against the New Jersey Devils on Friday.
“Just feels good as a team,” Kyrou said. “We got back-to-back wins here. Energy’s good right now.”
Brendan Gallagher had a goal and an assist, and Sam Montembeault made 29 saves for the Canadiens (5-4-2), who went 0-2-1 on a three-game road trip.
“Pretty sloppy from us,” Montreal captain Nick Suzuki said. “I thought we’d respond better after Arizona (a 3-2 loss on Thursday). It was the same things happening again. We need to clean things up.”
Kyrou gave St. Louis a 1-0 lead 1:24 into the first period, cutting to the slot and taking a Schenn pass from the left corner after Schenn missed a breakaway chance.
“He’s another guy too, where the stat sheet, what did he have, two or three points coming into this game?” Schenn said. “He had breakaways and 2-on-1s and stuff he wasn’t scoring on. He’s an opportunistic guy. Most importantly, I think his work ethic’s where it needs to be right now. He’s playing hard at both ends. He’s back-checking and he’s winning his battles. It was nice for him to get one too.”
MTL@STL: Kyrou gives Blues lead early in 1st
Juraj Slafkovsky, No. 1 overall pick in the 2022 NHL Draft, tied it 1-1 with his first goal of the season on the power play at 4:01.
“I had more shots today (four),” Slafkovsky said. “We had a good combination of players. We’re trying to do something. We’ll keep building.”
Thomas scored his third goal in as many games at 16:37 to give the Blues a 2-1 lead off a pass to the middle by Justin Faulk.
Saad made it 3-1 at 13:03 of the second period on a 2-on-1 with Kyrou, who fed Saad for a one-timer.
Gallagher made it 3-2 at 14:48 after Sean Monahan intercepted a puck behind the Blues’ net and fed Gallagher in the slot.
Alexey Toropchenko‘s short-handed breakaway goal at 2:50 of the third period made it 4-2.
“That was a big goal,” St. Louis coach Craig Berube said. “Our penalty kill was excellent even though we gave up that one, but I thought it was excellent and that was a huge goal. It was a good play by [Pavel Buchnevich] and ‘Torpo’ finished it off. That was a big goal for sure.”
MTL@STL: Toropchenko increases Blues’ lead in 3rd
Schenn’s first of the season at 5:53 made it 5-2 on a back-door play with Kyrou.
“It always feels good to get the first one and help produce, right?” Schenn said. “Everyone in the locker room wants to produce and help out and I felt as a line tonight (with Saad and Kyrou), we were good and as a team, we were good.
“The whole weekend, really committed to a different style of hockey, which is getting it out and getting pucks to the goal line and trying to wear teams out. We weren’t scoring, so we had to change something, and it’s just a commitment, it’s a hard game. If you guys want to do it, we score goals.”
Kasperi Kapanen added an empty-net goal at 16:00 to make it 6-2.
Suzuki deflected Cole Caufield‘s shot from the blue line at 18:32 for the 6-3 final.
NOTES: The Blues scored only 14 goals in their first eight games but have 10 in back-to-back days. … Canadiens forward Christian Dvorak was a minus-1 in 14:53 playing his season debut. Dvorak missed the past 28 games, including 10 this season, with a knee injury. … St. Louis defenseman Tyler Tucker was plus-2 with three takeaways and two hits in 15:23 after being a healthy scratch in three of the past four games. … Montreal forward Rafael Harvey-Pinard did not play because of a lower-body injury and is day-to-day. … The Blues are 11-0-0 all time in games when both Kyrou and Thomas score a goal.
