Defenceman Quinn Hughes scored two goals in a game for the second time in his career and Thatcher Demko stopped 22 shots for the shutout as the host Vancouver Canucks defeated the St. Louis Blues 5-0 Friday night to win their third consecutive game.
J.T. Miller scored shorthanded and added two assists for Vancouver (5-2-0).
Phil Di Giuseppe had a goal and an assist. Ilya Mikheyev scored once and Elias Petterson had two assists.
The shutout was the fourth of Demko鈥檚 career.
Hughes鈥檚 other two-goal came on Feb. 1, 2020, against the New York Islanders.
"We're going in the right direction and it was nice to be back at home."
鈥� Vancouver Canucks (@Canucks)
First star Quinn Hughes chats with following the 5-0 win over the Blues.
Goaltender Jordan Binnington stopped 30 shots for the Blues (3-3-1). St. Louis had defeated the Flames 3-0 in Calgary Thursday.
Demko made one of his best saves of the game early in the third period. Blues centre Brayden Schenn made a nice move to get past the Canuck defence, then skated wide and aimed a low shot for the corner of the net that Demko stopped with his right pad.
In the first period the Blues looked like a team that had played the previous night. St. Louis took four penalties 鈥� one with the game just 17 seconds old, another with 33 seconds left 鈥� and were outshot 19-3.
With the Canucks dominating play, both Sam Lafferty and Brock Boeser had good scoring chances before Hughes scored the game鈥檚 first goal. The Vancouver captain took a cross-ice pass from defensive partner Filip Hronek and scored on a seeing-eye shot through traffic that beat Binnington on the glove side at 7:59.
Vancouver broke the game open with three second-period goals, two of them 70 second apart.
Hughes scored his second of the night at 5:48 when he flipped a puck in front of the net that hit the skate of St. Louis forward Kevin Hayes and deflected past Binnington. Di Giuseppe scored his second of the season at 6:58 when he took a pass from defenceman Tyler Myers, skated between two Blues defencemen, and beat Binnington between his pads.
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Miller made it 4-0 seconds after Hughes was sent off for slashing. With St. Louis trying to claw back into the game on the power play, Pettersson intercepted a pass, then fed Miller who scored on a breakaway at 8:52.
Mikheyev made it 5-0 at 6:35 of the third period. He finished off a three-way passing play with Pettersson and Andrei Kuzmenko with a shot under Binnington鈥檚 pads.
NOTES: Canuck centre Teddy Blueger, who has not played this season due to an ankle injury, is expected to begin skating soon. 鈥� Vancouver centre Jack Studnicka was a healthy scratch for a second straight game. 鈥� The game was about nine minutes old before the Blues got their first shot on net. 鈥� Vancouver head coach Rick Tocchet and the Blue鈥檚 Craig Berube were roommates when they played together for the Philadelphia Flyers in the late-1980s. 鈥� It was the Blues first back-to-back games of the season. 鈥� St. Louis had won its previous three games in Vancouver, outscoring the Canucks 12-5. 鈥� The two teams play each other again Jan. 4 in St. Louis and Jan. 24 in Vancouver.
UP NEXT: The Canucks are back on the ice Saturday night hosting the New York Rangers. Vancouver鈥檚 homestand continues Halloween night against the Nashville Predators, who lost 3-2 to Vancouver Tuesday night. 鈥� The Blues play on the road again against Colorado Wednesday night. St. Louis then opens a four-game homestand against New Jersey Friday.
THE CANADIAN PRESS
