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Burns unloads on Blues Sharks start out hot and hold on in goalfest 11/29/13 - By Mike Lee - The Sharks may want to consider integrating turkey into every team meal for the remainder of the season. At the very least, make sure that the bird is infused Brent Burns' diet as much as possible. Following a healthy dose of the traditional foul on Thanksgiving Day, Burns unloaded on the St Louis Blues in a Friday afternoon matinee at SAP Center, scoring three goals for his 1st career hat-trick. Powered by two of Burns' tallies, the Sharks blitzed the Blues with 4 goals in the opening period en route to a 6-3 victory. * Burns is making Todd McLellan's decision to move him to forward look better and better with each passing game. The converted defenseman is tied for 4th on the team in goals even though he's only played in 12 of the team's 25 games this season. * Burns wasted all of 35 seconds to get the Sharks on the board. The burly forward slipped to the front of the net as Patrick Marleau and Logan Couture worked the puck in the right corner, then slammed a feed from Marleau past Brian Elliott for the 1-0 lead. Burns added his 2nd goal of the game midway through the period with the Sharks leading 2-0. With the Blues focused on Joe Thornton along the left wing boards, Burns drove for the post on the off wing with Alex Steen trailing and took a cross-ice feed and flipped a waist-high shot past Elliott for his 7th goal of the season. * Thornton scored his 2nd goal in as many games in between Burn's first two goals on a power play after Mike Brown drew an interference call on Blues defenseman Kevin Shattenkirk. Thornton scored from the same spot as Burns' 2nd goal, snapping home a deflection from 18 feet out after Joe Pavelski kicked a puck out to the front of the goal at 3:01 of the opening period. * The Blues tryptophan induced 1st period was capped with a Tommy Wingels goal at 11:27 after Jay Bouwmeester misplayed the puck at the Sharks blueline. The defenseman let a pass pack to his position at the left point jump over his stick, then he failed to tie up Wingels who raced up ice and put a shot off of Elliott. The puck caught the Blues netminder in the left arm, but it flipped past the netminder, skipping over the goal line for the 4-0 Sharks lead. * Logan Couture finished the 1st period with three assists. * Blues head coach Ken Hitchcock tried to light a fire under his team by pulling Elliott to start the 2nd period in favor of Jaroslav Halak. The move appeared to do the trick after St Louis pulled to within a goal of the Sharks by scoring three straight goals, including two in the 3rd period. * Ian Cole solved Antti Niemi midway through the 2nd period, firing a shot just inside the right post after cutting across the slot from right to left. The Blues raced up ice on Niemi after the Sharks just missed putting a puck past Halak. * The Sharks let the Blues back in the game by taking a bad penalty to start the 3rd period. Brad Stuart was sent off after tripping Vladimir Tarasenko, putting the Blues on the power play for the 6th time in the game. The 6th power play proved costly for San Jose when David Backes took a Derek Roy feed at the right dot and snapped a wrist shot past Niemi for his 12th goal of the season. Roy was skating away from the net on the left wing when he sent a blind backhand pass through the high slot to Backes on the right wing. * Things got dicey with 8:41 to play when Jaden Schwartz finished a 2-on-1 break with Vladimir Sobotka, sending a feed past Niemi from the right side. The goal came 4-on-4, while Dan Boyle and Shattenkirk sat in the sin-bin for separate infractions. * As if on cue, Burns came to the rescue, scoring a power play goal a minute later after while Shattenkirk waited for his holding penalty to expire. Burns didn't wait for the Sharks to setup in the Blues zone, but instead too matters into his own hands. He skated the puck into the zone along the left wing before cutting toward the slot and whipping a shot past Halak from the left dot. * Tomas Hertl added an empty-net goal with 46 seconds remaining in regulation to put the game out of reach. * In addition to Burns and Couture's multi-point night, Thornton (1G, 2A), Hertl (1G, 1A) and Pavelski (2A) recorded more than a single point. Burns capped his big night with an assist on Hertl's empty-net goal. * Justin Braun had eight blocked shots; Brad Stuart had seven. * Burns posted a photo on Twitter following the game of his front yard, which was littered with hats in celebration of the big guy's first hat trick. Quotables: Todd McLellan on Burns' offensive outburst: "A big night from him, he had a lot of energy early. It looks like he's getting back into where he was before. His minutes went up, he got back out on the power play, some more confidence. He can shoot the puck and his big body was needed today against a strong team." Joe Thornton: "We just looked real, real sharp at the start of the game and you like to get one and then-- bam-- you get two. To go up 4-0 in the first ten minutes of the game is kind of unheard of. We were ready to go and we knew it was going to be a good test for us. And I think we passed the test." Brent Burns: "We knew it was going to be a big game against these guys. There's a lot of stuff going on, with the history and two teams that both feel that [they're] at the top of their game. It was big. It was pretty special." Tommy Wingels: "We came ready to play at puck drop. I think we kind of surprised them a bit. Any time you can jump, get a lead like that on a team, it's tough to battle back from. We knew going into the second that their first period effort wasn't going to be the same in the second. We fully expected them to rebound and they did. I think you saw a bit of a different game after those twenty minutes." David Backes: "Great for them for coming out so hard but we need to have a better response. Scoring the first minute they scored and couple of more minutes on the power play and really just punched us in the mouth in that first period. We gained a little back in the 2nd and 3rd but too little too late." Ian Cole: "To spot them four goals is ridiculous. Especially a team like that that is so good that we knew we needed to play well against them. We just didn't deliver." SHARE THIS STORY: What did you think of this article? Post your comments on the Feeder Forums

What did you think of this story? Post your comments on the Feeder Forums Scoring 1 2 3 T STL 0 1 2 3 SJ 4 0 2 6 1st period - 1, SJ, Burns 6 (Marleau, Couture), 0:35. 2, SJ, Thornton 4 (Pavelski, Couture), 3:01. 3, SJ, Burns 7 (Thornton, Hertl), 9:14. 4, SJ, Wingles 8 (Couture, Braun), 11:27. 2nd period - 5, STL , Cole 1 (Schwartz, Polak), 11:03. 3rd period - 6, STL, Backes 12 (Roy, Steen), 2:02, (pp). 7, STL, Schwartz 6 (Sobotka, Polak), 11:19. 8, SJ, Burns 8 (Pavelski, Boyle), 12:19, (pp). 9, SJ, Hertl 13 (Burns, Thornton), 19:14, (en). Penalties 1st period - Shattenkirk, STL (interference), 2:06; Berglund, STL (cross checking), 6:40; Couture, SJ (hooking), 6:49; Marleau, SJ (tripping), 14:52. 2nd period - Backes, STL (cross checking), 5:50; Backes, STL (10 min misconduct), 5:50; Pavelski, SJ (interference), 7:42; Havlat, SJ (high sticking), 10:05; Roy, STL (unsportsmanlike conduct), 10:44; Boyle, SJ (holding), 17:23. 3rd period - Stuart, SJ (tripping), 0:40; Oshie, STL (interference), 5:19; Boyle, SJ (high sticking), 9:26; Shattenkirk, STL (holding), 11:09; Shattenkirk, STL (tripping), 16:06. Goaltending Shots Saves STL - Elliott 12 8 STL - Halak 19 18 SJ - Niemi 24 21 Shots On Goal 1 2 3 T STL 2 12 10 24 SJ 12 12 8 32 Power Play Conversion STL 1 of 7 SJ 2 of 7 3 Stars of the Game Brent Burns Logan Couture Justin Braun Attendence 17,562 Officials Referees: Meier, Hebert. Linesmen: Cvik, Driscoll.

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