Dvorak has hat trick in third period for Canadiens in win against Blues

ST. LOUIS -- Christian Dvorak scored his first NHL hat trick for the Montreal Canadiens in a 7-4 win against the St. Louis Blues at Enterprise Center on Saturday.

"It's nice," Dvorak said. "I've been close a couple times. It's kind of nice to get it out of the way, I guess. It was a good team win for us."
Cole Caufield had two goals and an assist, Nick Suzuki had a goal and two assists, and Jake Allen made 26 saves for the Canadiens (5-4-0), who have won the first two of a four-game road trip.
Jordan Kyrou scored twice, Brayden Schenn and Justin Faulk each had two assists, and Jordan Binnington made 18 saves for the Blues (3-4-0), who have lost four in a row after opening the season with three straight wins.
"I don't see the reason to talk how we lose a game," St. Louis forward Vladimir Tarasenko said. "It's unacceptable to play like this. We have some time before the next game (on Monday) to figure it out, and we have to play better at home.
"You saw the game. We can't play like this. I don't see the reason to find any issues right now. It's unacceptable and we should fix it."

Caufield cut it to 3-2 at 10:56 on a snap shot in front.
Juraj Slafkovsky, the No. 1 pick in the 2022 NHL Draft, scored his second NHL goal and first on the power play on a one-timer from the top of the right circle to tie it 3-3 at 13:05. He had missed the past three games with an upper-body injury.
"I feel 100 percent healthy," Slafkovsky said. "It's tough when I don't play. I always want to shoot, and it's lucky that it went in."
Caufield put Montreal ahead 4-3 at 15:46 off a seam pass from Suzuki on the power play.
"It feels good to get one 5-on-4, and to get two of them, too," Caufield said. "It's been something that we've been kind of talking about and really working at. It was good to get two on the board tonight."

Dvorak scored twice in a 40 second span in the third period.
He knocked in a puck at the side of the net following a Blues turnover 41 seconds into the period to increase the lead to 5-3. He then made it 6-3 at 1:21 when he tipped in a wrist shot from Josh Anderson from the blue line.
"We faced a little bit of adversity down two in the second and we fought our way back," Dvorak said. "The power play got us going and we kind of took momentum of the game there, and we had a good comeback for us on the road."
Tarasenko cut it to 6-4 at 2:47 following a Montreal turnover, but Dvorak completed the hat trick with an empty-net goal at 18:25 for the 7-4 final.
Kyrou gave the Blues a 1-0 lead at 7:47 of the first period when Schenn's shot from just inside the left circle caromed off his skate and trickled through Allen's pads.
Suzuki tied it 1-1 at 15:08, tipping in a shot from Jordan Harris after Blues defenseman Nick Leddy turned the puck over in the zone.
"You don't need to make [that play]," St. Louis coach Craig Berube said. "We've got to simplify, for sure. He could've went up the wall with it and been out of the zone. We're not simple right now. We complicate things. It was a good first period, I thought, and from then on, like in the second, we've got complete control in my opinion and then we let it slip away."
Noel Acciari's first goal with the Blues, a rebound of a Tyler Pitlick shot, gave them a 2-1 lead at 5:10, and Kyrou's power-play goal at 9:38 made it 3-1.

NOTES: Montreal forward Joel Armia played 17:07 in his season debut after missing eight games with an upper-body injury. ... Canadiens forward Michael Pezzetta played 11:04 in his season debut after being a healthy scratch for the first eight games. ... Dvorak won 11-of-15 face-offs (73.3 percent). ... Blues forward Pavel Buchnevich was minus-2 with two shots in 17:58 after missing five games with a lower-body injury. … Acciari signed a one-year contract with the Blues on July 13. … St. Louis has been outscored 11-1 the past four games in the third period. ... Suzuki has 100 NHL assists. … Montreal went 2-for-3 on the power play after going 1-for-24 (4.2 percent) the first eight games. … Harris and Kirby Dach each had two assists for the Canadiens.