Canucks blow out Blues
VANCOUVER — Bo Horvat and Jake Virtanen each got a goal and an assist as the Vancouver Canucks beat the St. Louis Blues 5-1 on Thursday.
Adam Gaudette, Josh Leivo and Loui Eriksson also scored for Vancouver (17-174), and Alex Edler had a pair of assists.
Vladimir Tarasenko put up the lone goal for St. Louis (13-16-6). Jake Allen stopped 24-of-28 shots for the Blues.
Jacob Markstrom made 29 saves for the Canucks and has now earned wins in his last six starts, a career high.
Markstrom kept an anemic Vancouver squad in the game through a first period that saw St. Louis fire 15 shots on net.
The crowd at Rogers Arena broke out into cheers of “Marky! Marky!” after the Canucks netminder stopped a rocket from Tyler Bozak during a Blues power play at the 17-minute mark of the opening frame.
Vancouver recovered from the scoreless first period with a power-play goal midway through the second.
Elias Pettersson sliced a beautiful pass to Horvat, who was in front of the St. Louis net and got a snapshot off before Allen could get all the way across the crease.
Just 28 seconds later, some hard work by Gaudette made it 2-0. The Canucks centre took a shot, then crashed the net, collected his own rebound and poked it in past the Blues netminder. The goal was the second of Gaudette’s NHL career.
Leivo put the Canucks up 3-0 early in the third, then Virtanen and Eriksson, into an empty net, added insurance markers. For Virtanen, it was his career-high 11th goal of the season.