Kyrou gets hat trick, lifts Blues past Rangers

ST. LOUIS — Jordan Kyrou scored a hat trick for the St. Louis Blues in a 5-2 win against the New York Rangers at Enterprise Center on Thursday.

“It feels great,” Kyrou said. “I’ve said this before, I love playing here. I love the fans. It feels awesome to get one at home.”

Pavel Buchnevich had a goal and two assists, Robert Thomas had two assists, and Jordan Binnington made 40 saves for the Blues (21-18-1), who have won three of four.

“If I’m being honest, it’s a game I didn’t like our team at all 5-on-5 for the majority of the game,” St. Louis coach Drew Bannister said. “But you look at the Colorado game (2-1 loss Dec. 29), we probably deserved two points in that game and then tonight, if it wasn’t for the performance of ‘Binner’ and our power play being able to score the two goals, I don’t know if we get out of here with two points. 

“Obviously happy with the two points. It’s an important two points. It’s a good hockey team over there, but I thought we made it easy on them here tonight. We can’t continue to do that. That’s not winning hockey and we’re not going to win many games like that playing that way.”

Adam Fox and Vincent Trocheck scored, and Igor Shesterkin made 15 saves for the Rangers (26-12-2), who have lost three straight (0-2-1) for the first time this season.

“It’s frustrating to lose, of course,” Fox said. “We want to get back on track. We played a pretty good game. They capitalized on some power plays. We were chasing. We got shots and chances and we couldn’t capitalize. We were playing well 5-on-5, and penalties take a little steam out of you for sure.

“You put up 40-plus shots in three straight games, you want a little better result to show for it. You would hope to get a few more goals. It’s still a loss, and we’re not happy with it.”

Rangers forward Mika Zibanejad was a late scratch due to a lingering illness that forced him to miss practice Wednesday.

“It’s going around from team to team,” New York coach Peter Laviolette said. “Morning skate he was good; it just took a turn for the worse right at game time. He was up for warmups. He’ll get some rest and he’ll be back [Saturday].”

Fox put the Rangers ahead 1-0 at 1:51 of the first period when he picked up a rebound at the bottom of the left circle with his back to the net, spun around, and beat Binnington.

Kyrou tied it 1-1 at 4:02 with a snapshot from the top of the right circle off a cross-ice pass from Thomas.

He then made it 2-1 with a power-play goal at 7:30, putting the puck in at the right post after a tic-tac-toe passing play with Thomas and Buchnevich.

“‘Tommer’ hit me with speed coming wide and I dropped it to him, and he made a great play. ‘Buchy’ found me for a tap in there,” Kyrou said. “I think that was a big goal for us, especially a power-play goal, big power-play goal to get the lead there.”

Brandon Saad‘s power-play goal at 9:26 of the second period made it 3-1, a one-timer from the right circle.

Kyrou completed the hat trick to make it 4-1 at 7:01 of the third period on a breakaway.

Trocheck cut it to 4-2 at 10:58 on the power play with his fourth goal in the past three games. He beat Binnington on a one-timer from the bottom of the right circle off a pass off the end boards from Artemi Panarin.

“We had tons of chances,” Trocheck said.

Buchnevich scored an empty-net goal at 19:42 for the 5-2 final.

“It was a clean game, fun,” Binnington said. “You know you’re going against a good offensive team over there. It was a fun working night.”

NOTES: It was Kyrou’s third NHL hat trick. He has eight points (four goals, four assists) in five games against the Rangers. … Panarin has 24 points (eight goals, 16 assists) in 21 games against St. Louis, and 15 points (nine goals, six assists) during a nine-game point streak; his three-game goal streak ended. … Trocheck has eight points (four goals, four assists) during a four-game point streak.