LDN - Sports

Schenn's hat trick helps Blues edge Canadiens

[December 06, 2017] By Chris Stevenson, The Sports Xchange

MONTREAL -- The St. Louis Blues could feel it coming.

Despite losing three games in a row, the last a 2-1 loss in overtime to the Minnesota Wild on Saturday, the Blues said they were getting back to their game.

The same could be said for forward Brayden Schenn, who had been one of the hottest players in the NHL in the month of November with seven goals and 19 points in a nine-game stretch, but had gone without a point in his past five games.

Schenn exploded for three goals to help the Blues end their losing streak with a 4-3 victory against the Montreal Canadiens at Bell Centre on Tuesday, ending Montreal's five-game winning streak.

Scottie Upshall also scored for the Blues (18-8-2) and Jake Allen made 22 saves.

Shea Weber scored two goals, including the 500th point of his career, and Jordie Benn scored for the Canadiens (13-13-3). Carey Price made 26 saves. It was Price's first loss since returning from a lower body injury six games ago.

Schenn's third goal at 12:11 of the third period, which deflected off the skate of Montreal defenseman David Schlemko, broke a 3-3 tie and gave the Blues the win.

"Eighty-two games, it's not going to be perfect throughout the whole time," Schenn said of his little slump. "You're going to have to grind, you're going to have to battle. Sometimes it's going to be difficult and you just have to find ways to push through it. As a team, as a line and personally, I think, in Minnesota we were able to find the game a little more and get back to what our team does best and we were able to find a win here tonight."

"He did a real good job refocusing himself and recognizing what it is that helps him get to his game," Blues coach Mike Yeo said of Schenn. "I feel that he's brought a physical element. It doesn't mean that he's running around and trying to engage in scrums after whistles, but when you see him engage physically in the defensive zone and arriving quickly in the offensive zone and separating people off pucks, that's a big factor in him getting to his game."

The Canadiens made it tough on the Blues. After the Blues scored goals seven seconds apart by Upshall and Schenn early in the second period for a 3-1 lead, Weber cut it to 3-2 with 2:56 left in the second period when he scored off a faceoff won by center Andrew Shaw. His shot sent the puck rolling on its edge, starting outside the right post and curling by Allen's left skate.

Weber tied it at 6:34 of the third period on a similar play: a Shaw faceoff win in the right wing circle back to Weber, who scored on a slap shot through Allen's pads.

It was the 10th time this season the Canadiens had given up two goals within a minute, but unlike earlier this season, they battled back.

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"I thought we still showed fight," Weber said. "We could have easily thought it was over, but we didn't by any means. They took it to us for the majority of that (second) period but I thought we had a couple of shifts, especially near the end where we scored and we got life.

"When things aren't going well, it's easy to get the 'woe is me' or think that everything is against you, but I think we learned through that tough stretch, you look at any night in this league and teams come back from down three, four goals, it's nothing. There's a belief in here we can do it like anybody else and we showed it."

Canadiens coach Claude Julien said there are positives to be drawn from the loss.

"The way we've been playing lately being down 3-1, we still had an opportunity," Julien said. "That second goal gave us some life at the end of the second period. We came out in the third determined to get ourselves back in and we did. Unfortunately that was a bit of an unlucky break there at the end, the way they scored the winner. At least our team competed, didn't give up and there's a lot of good things we can take from a game like that tonight."

Allen had in interesting night. He had to leave the game for 3:27 in the second period after the blade came out of his right skate. He returned wearing an old skate on his right foot for the rest of the second period.

Then he got beat by Weber's curving shot along the ice.

"There were a couple of weird plays that I have never had happen in my life, including the blade," Allen said. "I've seen that a few times this year. It just must be just the way the skates are going now, I guess. I tried to get up and I fell. I had no blade left. Both bolts broke out of my blade.

"(Weber's first goal) was another one of the weirdest plays I've ever had. It curved like two feet. I didn't even try it was going so wide. All I heard was 'ding.' He sort of reacted, 'What happened there?' He knew it was going wide, too."

NOTES: Canadiens D Shea Weber became the fourth active defenseman to reach the 500-point plateau, joining Zdeno Chara of the Boston Bruins, Duncan Keith of the Chicago Blackhawks and Brent Burns of the San Jose Sharks. ... Scratched for the Blues were RW Vince Dunn, C Oskar Sundqvist and RW Chris Thorburn. Dunn was scratched for the second game in a row after playing in the Blues first 26 games. ... The Blues' injuries are long term. LW Zach Sanford is out 4-to-5 months with a shoulder injury and C Robby Fabbri is out for the season with a knee injury. ... Canadiens C Jonathan Drouin missed his third game with a lower body injury. He is day-to-day. ... Also injured for the Canadiens were RW Ales Hemsky (concussion), LW Artturi Lehkonen (lower body), G Al Montoya (concussion) and RW Nikita Scherbak (knee).

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