ST. LOUIS — Jordan Martinook had a hat trick to help the Carolina Hurricanes beat the St. Louis Blues 6-4 on Thursday night.
After a turnover, Martinook scored the winning goal with 4:35 left, beating goalie Jordan Binnington on a wrist shot. Martinook also scored in the second period and completed the hat trick with nine seconds left for his second career hat trick.
“I’m not the guy who’s supposed to get them, but I’ll take it,” said Martinook, who also had a hat trick came in 2018. “I guess I was due.”
Carolina coach Rod Brind’Amour liked how Martinook shook off a bad play on the first St. Louis goal.
“What can you say? He was great. He knew the first goal was his guy,” Brind’Amour said. “I just love the fact he turned the page. You know, he had a tough shift there. The next you know, he said he was done and he went out and was the best player in the game. Give him a lot of credit.”
Brent Burns, Seth Jarvis and Jordan Staal also scored.
The Hurricanes scored three goals in 1:04 in the second period to take a 3-2 lead.
“We were shooting the puck. We kept putting pucks on net,” Staal said. “You feel eventually you’ll get a bounce. We got a few there. They started going behind the goalie which was good. We stayed with our style and created as much havoc as possible.”
Antti Raanta made 12 saves on 15 shots. Pyotr Kochetkov came in the game at the start of the third period and made 10 saves on 11 shots to earn the win.
“It’s a tough spot for a goalie to get thrown in in the middle of a game,” Brind’Amour said about Kocketkov. “He played great for us. That was huge.”
Two games into a six-game trip, Carolina has won three in a row after dropping five straight.
Pavel Buchnevich, Noel Acciari, Torey Krug and Ryan O’Reilly scored for St. Louis. Binnington made 30 saves, missing a chance for his 100th victory.
“We’re a good team,” Krug said. “The record doesn’t exactly show that, but I think pretty soon, we’re going to overtake games and we’re going to put together 60 full minutes.”
The Blues have lost four of their last five and have been outscored 21-9 in the last four.
“It’s a tough month here. We’ve got to play good hockey here to stay in it for sure,” St. Louis coach Craig Berube said. “It’s a busy month. We’ve got three back-to-backs. We’ve got to clean it up. We did a lot of good things tonight, but obviously not good enough.”
The Hurricanes play at Los Angeles on Saturday night.
