Schenn, Buchnevich each has hat trick in Blues win against Avalanche

DENVER -- Brayden Schenn and Pavel Buchnevich each scored a hat trick for the St. Louis Blues in an 8-2 win against the Colorado Avalanche at Ball Arena on Saturday.

Torey Krug scored and had an assist, and Robert Thomas had four assists for the Blues (7-5-1), who have won four of their past five games. Jordan Binnington made 36 saves.

“I think we've been playing pretty solid hockey, and tonight, we did a good job of scoring some goals and doing some things to score goals,” St. Louis coach Craig Berube said. “Special teams were really good. Our kill got a couple of shorties out of it and scored a couple big power-play goals in the third period, but overall, I thought it was a good team effort. Getting to an early start and scoring early. Our goaltender was really solid too.”

Mikko Rantanen and Jack Johnson scored for the Avalanche (8-5-0), who have lost five of their past seven games. Alexandar Georgiev allowed six goals on 28 shots before being replaced by Ivan Prosvetov at 2:49 of the third period. Prosvetov made 12 saves in relief.

“The third period was a joke. That was the worst period I've ever seen from our club,” Colorado coach Jared Bednar said. “We're getting outplayed. Goaltender's getting outplayed by their goaltender. Forwards are getting outplayed by their forwards. 'D' are getting outplayed by their ‘D.’ Not for the whole game, but for big enough stretches. That's why the score gets run up.”

Schenn made it 1-0 when he redirected Krug’s point at 1:08 of the first period.

“Our offense has really changed or started to come around since the last time we were here in this building,” Schenn said. “We had some meetings and [were] kind of shown league-wide trends and how to score and what really works and what we were doing that wasn't, right? So ever since then, the buy-in has been there, and guys are getting rewarded for it.”

Schenn extended the lead to 2-0, elevating the puck over a sprawling Georgiev at 18:53 of the first.

Krug made it 3-0 with a wrist shot from above the right circle that got past Georgiev’s glove at 19:58 of the first.

“It's not anything flashy. It's putting the puck in deep, grinding teams down, getting to the net, 'D' shooting pucks, and not passing up opportunities,” Schenn said. “It's not a recipe other teams don't know, it's just you have to have a commitment to do it, and when you do, other things open up for you, and like I said, guys get rewarded.”

Buchnevich scored a short-handed goal to make it 4-0 when he finished a 2-on-1 with Oskar Sundqvist at 11:52 of the second period.

“I think it's a big game for our club, just confidence-wise, and you can see things were connecting for the guys tonight,” said Binnington. “We've been working hard. We've been working on our foundation, and I think just buying in, finding a way, seeing success and seeing guys get some goals and assists, and it all starts from our framework and our foundation.”

Rantanen cut the lead to 4-1 when he deflected Cale Makar’s point shot over the right shoulder of Binnington at 16:07 of the second.

Buchnevich added his second of the game to make it 5-1 when he one-timed Thomas’ cross-crease pass on the power play at 1:20 of the third period.

Schenn completed the hat trick to make it 6-1 at 2:49 of the third with a slap shot from above the left circle on the power play.

“I'm not a pure goal scorer. I don't know how many hat tricks I have in my career, but it always feels good to get rewarded,” said Schenn. “Thomas put that one on a tee for me and I was able to hit it.”

Buchnevich completed the hat trick on a short-handed breakaway, deking to the backhand around Prosvetov to make it 7-1 at 15:57.

“It's pretty cool. I never been involved in a game when two guys scored a hat trick,” Buchnevich said. “It's obviously a good team. Stanley Cup champion a couple years ago. Divisional game, basically a four-point game, and you're happy to get the win.”

Alexey Toropchenko scored on his own rebound at 19:11 to make it 8-1.

Johnson scored on a slap shot from the point at 19:32 for the 8-2 final.

“A lot of things kind of got to go wrong to lose [8-2],” said Makar. “This is a really tough streak of games, honestly. Basically, getting shut out whatever, four of the last five or four of the last six. Yeah, It's a weird one.”

NOTES: Buchnevich scored the 24th hat trick of 2023-24, marking the most at this point of a season since 1992-93 (29 through 221 GP). He also became the third player in Blues history to score two shorthanded goals in a game, joining Michal Handzus (Feb. 15, 2000 vs. ATL) and Larry Patey (Nov. 2, 1980 at CHI), and the third Blues player in the past 20 years to score a power-play and shorthanded goal in the same game. … Schenn and Buchnevich became the third pair of Blues players to score a hat trick in the same game, following Doug Gilmour and Mark Hunter (Feb. 23, 1986) as well as Kevin LaVallee and Dave Barr (Oct. 20, 1984). The last team to have two or more players with a hat trick in the same game was Chicago on Feb. 25, 2022 (Brandon Hagel & Patrick Kane). … Colorado has allowed 38 goals in its last nine games. … Thomas extended his career-best point streak to six games (five goals, five assists)