SAN JOSE, California: Brent Burns had a thought yesterday’s game was going to be a little different.
He just never imagined how much. Burns got his first NHL hat-trick and the Sharks ended a five-game home losing streak to St Louis with a 6-3 victory over the Blues yesterday.
“We knew it was going to be a big game against these guys,” Burns said.
“There was a lot of stuff going on, especially with the history. Two teams, we both feel we’re at the top of our game. So it was big. It was pretty special.”
Joe Thornton, Tomas Hertl and Tommy Wingels also scored for the Sharks, who won their fourth straight and seven of eight.
Ian Cole scored his first goal in nearly two years as the Blues had their five-game winning streak halted. David Backes and Jaden Schwartz also scored for St Louis.
Antti Niemi stopped 21 of 24 shots for his 14th win of the season. Brian Elliott took the loss, his first in eight games, after giving up four goals on 12 shots. He was lifted for Jaroslav Halak, who had 18 saves. Joe Pavelski gave Burns the puck and then screened off Halak. Burns skated between two defenders and shot.
“The final goal, seemed to say, OK, I’m going to do something here,” Burns said.
“It’s just a black-out kind of a thing. Good play by Joe, I got in the zone. Quick shot. I don’t really remember what happened.”
The Blues, who earned points in their previous nine games, were off to their best road start in franchise history, bringing a 7-2-1 mark into the game.
“It looked like we needed to set a few more alarm clocks this morning,” Backes said.
“No matter what happened, we needed to have a better response. They punched us in the mouth in the first period.” Burns scored 35 seconds into the game, taking a nice pass from Patrick Marleau and flipping the puck over Elliott’s right shoulder. Logan Couture started the sequence after intercepting a clearing pass. Thornton scored a power-play goal at 3:01, the first allowed by the Blues in six games and just the second on the road. Couture took a shot that bounced off Elliott’s pad and Pavelski flipped it out to Thornton, who beat Elliott to the glove side.Agencies
