Mellanby’s Four Goals Lead Blues to Victory

Before Thursday night, Scott Mellanby had the distinction of being the NHL’s leading active goal-scorer without a hat trick.

Then he went out and scored four goals in his 1,209th game as the St. Louis Blues completed a perfect four-game homestand with a 6-3 victory over the Phoenix Coyotes.

“I kind of enjoyed having that distinguishing fact, which kind of proves you’re mediocre for a long time,” Mellanby said. “But I’d be lying if I said I wouldn’t like to have one.”

Mellanby has 323 goals in 18 seasons, with a high of 32 in 1995-96 with the Florida Panthers. He has 23 this season, his first 20-plus season since he had 27 for the Panthers in 1996-97.

His teammates knew he’d never had a hat trick, so they were trying to help after he got two in the first period.

“It was a trivia question on ‘NHL Tonight’ not long ago, so we knew he’d gone quite a long time,” defenseman Al MacInnis said. “It’s kind of strange, especially for him. He’s a big guy, but he’s got pretty good hands.”

Mellanby scored on all four of his shots, and all four goals came on power plays.

Nashville 2, Minnesota 2 -- Pascal Dupuis scored a power-play goal in the second period and Manny Fernandez stopped 29 shots as the Wild ended the Predators’ seven-game home winning streak. Nashville has not lost at home since Feb. 11.

The Wild trailed, 2-1, when Dupuis tied it at 8:28 with the man advantage as he swept the puck past goalie Tomas Vokoun’s stick off assists from Jim Dowd and Nick Schultz.

San Jose 4, Montreal 3 -- Marco Sturm scored two goals, including the game-winner at 3:58 of overtime, as the Sharks won at San Jose in their first game without longtime captain Owen Nolan.

The Sharks rallied from a 2-1 deficit with two goals in the third period before Montreal’s Francis Bouillon forced overtime by scoring with 1:35 remaining. Montreal is winless in its last eight games.

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Boston 4, New York Islanders 1 -- Marty McInnis scored three goals at Boston as the Bruins posted consecutive victories for the first time since late January.

McInnis, who began his career with the Islanders in 1992 after playing on the U.S. Olympic team, completed his third career hat trick with an empty-net goal with 1:06 to play.

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Carolina 4, Pittsburgh 0 -- Jeff O’Neill scored two goals and the Hurricanes ended a two-month road winless streak at Pittsburgh.

The Hurricanes came into the game with an NHL-low 51 points but had an easy time with a Penguin team that has tumbled into the league’s bottom five.

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Columbus 5, Vancouver 4 -- At Columbus, Ohio, Rick Nash picked up his first overtime goal and handed the Canucks their first overtime loss.

Vancouver, which had leads of 2-0 and 3-2, was 5-0-10 in overtime before Nash scored with 2:58 remaining in the extra period.

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Buffalo 4, Toronto 2 -- Curtis Brown had two goals and Miroslav Satan extended his points-scoring streak to seven games at Buffalo, N.Y.

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Washington 4, Atlanta 4 -- Jaromir Jagr broke out of a slump with two goals and an assist and Ivan Ciernik scored with 2:57 left in regulation to lift the Capitals into a tie at Washington.