MONTREAL — Brayden Schenn knew that if the St. Louis Blues kept dominating games their winless run would end sooner or later.
The Blues star centre took care of business himself by scoring three goals to lift the Blues to a 4-3 victory over the Montreal Canadiens on Tuesday night that ended a string of three straight games without a win.
"We played well as a team," said Schenn. "I thought we had a good game in Minnesota the last game we played (a 2-1 overtime loss on Saturday) and just didn't get the result we wanted.
"I thought it transitioned over to tonight and we were able to come out with two points in a tough building to play in."
Scottie Upshall also scored for St. Louis (18-8-2), which outshot the Canadiens 30-25 and had the edge in play for most of the game in every area except in goal, where Montreal's Carey Price made some brilliant stops and the Blues' Jake Allen got beat three times by defencemen from the blue line.
Schenn's third goal, which broke a tie with 7:49 left to play, was no fault of Price's. The Blues star threw the pass in front intended for Jaden Schwartz and saw the puck go in off defenceman David Schlemko's skate.
"I put my arms up in the air and asked Schwartzy in the huddle whether it was his or not," said Schenn. "He said 'I don't know if it went in off (Shea) Weber or another D-man's skate.' But I'll definitely take those lucky goals."
Weber scored twice and Jordie Benn also had a goal for Montreal (13-13-3), which ended a five-game winning streak and also saw Price lose for the first time in six games since returning from a lower-body injury.
Weber's first goal was his 500th career point. It came in his 100th game for Montreal since his trade from Nashville in 2016.
Benn scored for a second game in a row and tied a career high with his fourth of the season. The long-bearded defenceman has six goals in 41 games for Montreal since arriving in a trade late last season. He had 11 goals in 302 games for Dallas.
"The right things at the right time I guess," said Benn. "It's just a confidence thing I guess."
Good work in the Montreal zone led to the Blues' opening goal at 5:00 as Schwartz set up Schenn from behind the net for a one-timer to the top corner.
The Canadiens didn't get their first shot on goal until after the 12-minute mark, but then it didn't take long to score as Benn's point shot through traffic got by Allen at 15:28.
"I walked the blue line and I saw a little lane and let her go," said Benn. "I couldn't see the net.
"I couldn't even see the goalie, there were so many guys in front."
The Blues owned the entire second period, but needed only a brief moment to score twice as Upshall finished a rush with Dmitrij Jaskin at 2:32 and Schenn took a feed at the Montreal blue line from Alex Pietrangelo and went in alone to beat Price at 2:39.
Andy McDonald and David Backes retained the Blues team record with goals six seconds apart in 2010, however.
Andrew Shaw won a draw back to Weber for a low shot that curled inside the right post at 17:04. Shaw won another draw back to Weber for another low blast that went through Allen's legs to tie the game 6:34 into the third.
Allen left midway through the second period to have a skate blade repaired after making a save. Backup Carter Hutton did not face a shot in 3:27 of work before Allen returned.
"I tried to get up and I fell," said Allen. "I had no blades left.
"My bolts both broke out of my blades. They had no equipment at the bench. I actually had to wear another pair (of skates).
Montreal's Jonathan Drouin sat out with an illness after missing the last two games with an injury.
Bill Beacon, The Canadian Press