Brayden Schenn and Jordan Kyrou star as St. Louis Blues beat Montreal Canadiens 6-3
By Warren Mayes, The Associated Press on November 4, 2023.
ST. LOUIS (AP) – Brayden Schenn and Jordan Kyrou each had a goal and two assists, and the St. Louis Blues beat the Montreal Canadiens 6-3 on Saturday night. Alexy Toropchenko, Robert Thomas, Kasperi Kapanen and Brandon Saad also scored for St. Louis. Joel Hofer made 30 saves. “Just feels good as a team,” Kyrou said. “We got back-to-back wins here. Energy’s good right now.” The Blues (5-4-1) recorded consecutive wins for the first time this season. They beat New Jersey 4-1 on Friday night. “We’ve got to go into every game and outwork the other team,” coach Craig Berube said. “We want to be that type of team. We have skill. The skill will come through, but we’ve got to put the work in and we did that for these two games.” Juraj Slafkovsky, Brendan Gallagher and Nick Suzuki scored for Montreal (5-4-2) in its third consecutive loss. Samuel Montembeault made 29 stops. “We have a young team. You can’t just show up,” Montreal forward Nick Suzuki said. “It’s unacceptable.” St. Louis led 3-2 after two periods, and then scored three times in the third. Toropchenko posted a short-handed goal at 2:50. Schenn made it 5-2 with his first goal of the season at 5:53, and Kapanen scored into an empty net at 16:00. “It always feels good to get the first one and help produce, right?” Schenn asked. “Everyone in the locker room wants to produce and help out.” Suzuki scored his third goal with 1:28 remaining, but that was it for Montreal. Kyrou put St. Louis in front 1:24 into the first. Schenn got the puck in the corner and made a nifty pass to Kyrou, who was parked just to the right of the goal. Montreal answered at 4:01 when Slafkovsky snapped in a wrist shot for a power-play goal. It was his first goal of the season. “I was just happy we tied the game,” the 19-year-old Slafkovsky said. “I was just trying to play my game. I don’t follow the media. I don’t have Facebook or Twitter. I just have Instagram. People don’t throw up bad stuff on Instagram, luckily.” Thomas put the Blues up 2-1 at 16:37. He cut to the slot after getting a pass from Justin Faulk, and then converted a wrist shot for his fourth goal of the season. Each team scored a goal in the second. Kyrou fed Saad at 13:03 for a 3-1 lead. Schenn forced a turnover in the neutral zone and got the puck to Kyrou for a 2-on-1 break. Saad one-timed the puck by Montembeault. The Canadiens responded with Gallagher’s fourth goal of the season at 14:48. ‘We definitely have to learn how to play on the road a little bit better,” Gallagher said. “The good news is it’s early in the year. We’re going to get better.” UP NEXT Canadiens: Host Tampa Bay on Tuesday. Blues: Host Winnipeg on Tuesday. __ More AP NHL: https://apnews.com/hub/NHL and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports 24-23
