Grant's 1st hat trick the difference as Ducks top Blues

Derek Grant scored his first career hat trick to lead the visiting Anaheim Ducks to a 4-1 victory over the St. Louis Blues on Saturday night, ending two streaks in the process. The Ducks snapped their five-game winless streak while the Blues saw their nine-game points streak come to an end.

Ryan Getzlaf also scored and John Gibson stopped 37 of 38 shots for the Ducks, who started their four-game road trip on a positive note. Vince Dunn scored for the Blues -- who suffered just their fourth regulation loss in 21 games -- and Jordan Binnington made 21 saves.

Ducks youngster Max Jones moved up in the lineup to play with Getzlaf and he paid quick dividends. Jones took a two-on-one pass from Getzlaf and sent it right back to the veteran for an open-net goal just four minutes into the game. Grant made it 2-0 less than two minutes later by exploiting a Blues mishap. Binnington went behind his net and played the puck toward teammate Alex Pietrangelo, but failed to get back before the puck caromed to Grant in front of the open net.

Dunn cut the lead to 2-1 by stepping up in the play to score off the rush 3:14 into the second period. His snapshot from the right circle beat Gibson low. But Grant capitalized on another Blues blunder to push the Ducks' lead to 3-1 about four minutes later. Justin Faulk dropped a careless power-play pass toward Dunn in his own zone, allowing Grant to intercept it for a short-handed breakaway goal.

Grant iced the game with his empty-net goal with 1:39 left on a two-on-nobody break with Getzlaf. Blues forward prospect Klim Kostin made his NHL debut, playing on the third line with Tyler Bozak and Robert Thomas. Defenseman Robert Bortuzzo, who hadn't played since Oct. 27, got back into the lineup and assisted on Dunn's goal for his first point of the season.

Defenseman Carl Gunnarsson and forward Jacob de la Rose bowed out of the Blues lineup. The Ducks plugged defenseman Michael Del Zotto and forward Devin Shore into the lineup at the expense of forward Ondrej Kase and defenseman Jacob Larsson. 

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