{"id":588843,"date":"2026-04-06T09:35:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-06T09:35:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/588843\/"},"modified":"2026-04-06T09:35:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-06T09:35:09","slug":"thomas-gets-1st-hat-trick-lifts-blues-past-avalanche","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/588843\/","title":{"rendered":"Thomas gets 1st hat trick, lifts Blues past Avalanche"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Thomas gave St. Louis a 1-0 lead at 12:01 of the first period when he one-timed Snuggerud\u2019s centering pass top shelf past Blackwood&#8217;s blocker from the high slot. Snuggerud gained possession at the right side of the crease during a scramble for the puck before feeding Thomas.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe was terrific right from his first shift. He had the puck on the stick,\u201d Montgomery said. \u201cHe scored the three goals, but he made about six high-end passes. I&#8217;m sitting on the bench and I don&#8217;t even see the lanes that he sees going full speed. So, he was really good, but he was really good on the PK, too.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Kelly tied it 1-1 at 15:10 of the first with a redirection of Burns\u2019 point shot that ricocheted off the left leg of Blues defenseman <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nhl.com\/player\/cam-fowler-8475764\" title=\"Cam Fowler\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Cam Fowler<\/a>\u00a0and past the glove of Hofer. The goal was his 20th of the season.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThings are just going in. I mean, like this one goes off my stick then off their guy. So little bit of luck,\u201d Kelly said. \u201cI&#8217;m happy with the year I&#8217;ve been having, but yeah, we still got (six) games here, and we need to get a couple more wins here. That&#8217;s the priority.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Burns put Colorado in front 2-1 at 3:40 of the second period, scoring with a wrist shot from the right point that made it through traffic and under Hofer&#8217;s blocker.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt&#8217;s a lot of winning and losing back and forth lately,\u201d MacKinnon said. \u201cIt was a tight game. Obviously, back-to-back, but would have been nice just to get a point there, take our chances in OT.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Thomas responded 29 seconds later to tie it 2-2, taking a pass from Holloway on a rush and scoring glove side from the bottom of the right circle. The play came nine seconds after Hofer stopped MacKinnon on a breakaway.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re having fun as a team. We\u2019re trying to win games and we\u2019re doing our best to possibly do that,\u201d Snuggerud said. \u201cComing into this building is a tough one, and I thought we rose to the occasion, and we need to do the same thing at home.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Avalanche forward <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nhl.com\/player\/valeri-nichushkin-8477501\" title=\"Valeri Nichushkin\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Valeri Nichushkin<\/a>\u00a0didn\u2019t play because of an upper-body injury. He is day to day.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe&#8217;s probably a possibility even for Tuesday. We&#8217;ll just see how he feels the next couple days. Just that time of year,\u201d Bednar said. \u201cYou get some little bumps and bruises. Everybody has them, but sometimes there&#8217;s something a little bit more significant. I don&#8217;t want to be playing guys hurt if it can get worse. So, you got to be careful on some of them. That&#8217;s what we did today with Val.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>NOTES: The two teams will play again in St. Louis on Tuesday. &#8230; Thomas has 10 points (five goals, five assists) on a five-game point streak. &#8230; Holloway has 11 points (four goals, seven assists) on a six-game point streak.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Thomas gave St. Louis a 1-0 lead at 12:01 of the first period when he one-timed Snuggerud\u2019s centering&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":588844,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,575,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-588843","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/588843","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=588843"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/588843\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/588844"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=588843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=588843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=588843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}