Blues' Offensive Firepower Shines in 4-0 Shutout vs. Islanders

Thursday's 4-0 shutout victory proved to be one of the best for the St. Louis Blues this season. It not only featured a hat trick by one of their best players, but also saw a new franchise record that had previously stood since the last month of the 1992/93 season, a whole 31 years prior.

The main star of the game was winger Pavel Buchnevich, who picked up his 4th career NHL hat trick, and a natural one at that (3 goals in a row by one player on one team), and Robert Thomas added as many assists. The finishing touch was Jordan Binnington's 38 saves, his highest total since a 5-2 win over the New York Rangers on Jan. 11 that saw the 30-year-old Richmond, Ontario native make 43 saves.

The bigger thing that hasn't been mentioned was the 3 goals scored by the Blues in just 32 seconds. The first came from Brandon Saad, his 16th of the season at 4:38 of the 2nd period on a Blues power play that broke the scoreless deadlock.

With Saad’s power-play goal, the Blues power play scored in the fourth straight game, a new season-high. Saad’s goal was the team’s 19th power-play goal in the last 17 games. Just 7 seconds later, Buchnevich's first of the night, his 20th, made it 2-0 at the 4:45 mark. Buchenvich would then score again at the 5:10 mark to make it 3-0 Blues, before making it 4-0 at 9:21 of period 3 to complete his natural hat trick, the first time he's ever accomplished such an impressive feat.

The previous mark for the 3 fastest goals in a game by the Blues came on April 15, 1993, in a 6-5 win over the then-expansion Tampa Bay Lightning at the old St. Louis Arena. That took 36 seconds, starting 22 seconds from the end of the 1st period and finishing just 14 seconds into the 2nd period. Center Bob Bassen was responsible for two of those 3 goals, while Kevin Miller scored the other, and the pair would have two goals each in that game entirely.

The Blues improved to 30-24-2, with a visit to Detroit on the horizon, i.e., tomorrow at noon in a midday primetime slot. They still sit at 4th in the Central Division and are 6-4-0 in their last 10 games, so they still have plenty of time to fight for a playoff spot down the road.

There is also one final note from the 4-0 victory: Blues prospect Zach Bolduc made his NHL debut in the contest, the 20-year-old junior superstar from Trois-Rivières, Quebec, a Memorial Cup champion with the QMJHL's Quebec Remparts just last year. He's spent most of this season with Springfield (48 games, 8 goals, 15 assists for 23 points) but could be a potential breakout star for this young Blues team, already loaded with similarly aged star players.