ST. LOUIS (AP) Sidney Crosby scored twice www.officialbluejackets.com , including his 400th career goal, and the Pittsburgh Penguins pulled away from the St. Louis Blues for a 4-1 victory on Sunday.Bryan Rust snapped a tie with a third-period tally and Riley Sheahan also scored for the Penguins, who have won 12 of 17. Matt Murray made 33 saves.Kyle Brodziak scored for St. Louis, which had won two in a row. Jake Allen had 19 stops.Crosby had not scored in his previous 10 games dating to Jan. 14. The captain stopped the drought in the second period in front of his father Troy, who was on the two-game dads’ trip that began Friday in Dallas.Crosby added an empty-netter with 2:48 left for his 19th goal of the season.FLYERS 4, GOLDEN KNIGHTS 1LAS VEGAS (AP) – Sean Couturier had a goal and two assists to help Philadelphia become just the fourth team to beat Vegas at home in regulation this season.Andrew Macdonald, Claude Giroux and Radko Gudas also scored for Philadelphia, which improved to 20-8-2 since Dec. 4 – when it ended a 10-game winless streak with a 5-2 victory at Calgary. One night after coming off the bench to stop five shootout attempts and help the Flyers to a 4-3 win in Arizona, goalie Michal Neuvirth stopped 14 shots to improve to 7-7-2 on the year.Brayden McNabb scored the lone goal for Vegas, which is 19-4-2 at home this season. Marc-Andre Fleury, now 27-18-2 lifetime versus Philadelphia, finished with 38 saves.BRUINS 5, DEVILS 3NEWARK, N.J. (AP) – Adam McQuaid got his first goal of the season with 8:05 to play, and Boston extended its road point-scoring streak to 13 games.Fellow defenseman Torey Krug scored twice and Tim Schaller also scored as the Bruins improved to 19-2-4 in their last 25 games. Patrice Bergeron added an empty-netter, and Anton Khudobin finished with 35 saves.Miles Wood, Taylor Hall and Kyle Palmieri scored for the Devils, who have lost four straight and eight of 11. Eddie Lack, who was acquired in a trade with Calgary in late December, made 22 saves in his first start for New Jersey.SHARKS 3, DUCKS 2, SOANAHEIM, Calif. (AP) – Logan Couture had a goal and an assist and then scored in the shootout to help San Jose beat Anaheim.San Jose’s Timo Meier tied it with 53.7 seconds remaining. Martin Jones made 25 saves in the Sharks’ second straight win.Ondrej Kase had a goal and an assist for the Ducks, who had won three straight home games. Cam Fowler also scored, Nick Ritchie had two assists and John Gibson made 37 saves.San Jose remained in second place in the Pacific Division Columbus Blue Jackets T-Shirts Authentic , two points ahead of Calgary – which won at the New York Islanders. Anaheim is tied with Los Angeles in fourth, one point behind the Flames.RED WINGS 5, CAPITALS 4, OTWASHINGTON (AP) – Tomas Tatar scored his second goal of the game 2:47 into overtime, helping Detroit avoid a second straight embarrassing loss.Tatar beat Braden Holtby for his 14th goal of the season. He also scored with 11 seconds to play in the second period to give Detroit a 4-1 lead.Justin Abdelkader, Luke Glendening and Anthony Mantha also scored for the Red Wings, who had dropped three in a row. They blew a 5-2 third-period lead against the New York Islanders on Friday and lost 7-6 in overtime.Jimmy Howard made 23 saves in his first win since Jan. 5.Alex Ovechkin scored his NHL-best 33rd goal for Washington, which was coming off a home-and-home sweep of Columbus. Brett Connolly, Dmitry Orlov and Nicklas Backstrom scored in the third, and Holtby stopped 24 shots.AVALANCHE 5, SABRES 4BUFFALO, N.Y. (AP) – Tyson Jost and Gabriel Bourque scored rebound goals in the third period, and Colorado held on for the win.Colin Wilson had a goal and an assist, and Alexander Kerfoot and Matt Nieto also scored in a game the Avalanche never trailed. Jonathan Bernier stopped 28 shots.Ryan O’Reilly and Evander Kane scored in the final 7:46 after Buffalo fell behind 5-2. O’Reilly added two assists, Casey Nelson and Benoit Pouliot scored short-handed goals and Robin Lehner stopped 22 shots for Buffalo.The Sabres played without leading scorer Jack Eichel, who will miss four to six weeks with a sprained right ankle. Eichel was hurt in a 4-2 win at Boston a day earlier.FLAMES 3, ISLANDERS 2NEW YORK (AP) – Calgary’s Matthew Tkachuk scored twice in the third period, getting the tiebreaking goal with 1:05 left.Mark Jankowski also scored for the Flames, who pulled into a tie with Minnesota for the second wild card in the Western Conference. Mike Smith made 23 saves before leaving due to an injury with 2 seconds remaining, and David Rittich came on to close the game.Travis Hamonic had an assist on Tkachuk’s late goal in his first game back in Brooklyn since the Islanders dealt him to Calgary in the offseason.Casey Cizikas and Anthony Beauvillier scored for the Islanders, and Jaroslav Halak finished with 39 saves.RANGERS 3, JETS 1WINNIPEG, Manitoba (AP) – Jimmy Vesey scored with 3:53 left in the third period, sending the Rangers to the win.Vesey returned to the lineup after missing three games with a concussion and picked up his 11th of season when he deflected Brady Skjei’s shot after it hit a Jets player.It looked as if Dustin Byfuglien tied it for Winnipeg with 1:22 remaining, but his goal was called off because of teammate Mark Scheifele’s high stick. Michael Grabner then scored an empty-net goal for New York with 43 seconds left.Henrik Lundqvist stopped 37 shots for the Rangers in the opener of a four-game trip. Mats Zuccarello ended a 21-game drought with his ninth goal.Nikolaj Ehlers scored his 21st goal for Winnipeg Columbus Blue Jackets Hoodies Authentic , and Connor Hellebuyck made 25 saves.CANUCKS 6, STARS 0DALLAS (AP) – Reid Boucher scored his first two goals of the season and Jacob Markstrom made 30 saves for his second career shutout, leading the Canucks to the runaway road win.Vancouver opened a 3-0 lead in the first 13:27. Boucher and Jake Virtanen scored unassisted, and Thomas Vanek added the third goal. Bo Horvat scored on the power play, and Boucher connected on a tip-in in the second period. Erik Gudbranson had a third-period goal.Dallas had won five in a row. The loss prevented the Stars from passing St. Louis for third place in the Central Division.Dallas’ Kari Lehtonen had 19 saves after replacing Ben Bishop following Horvat’s goal. Bishop allowed four goals in 20 shots. DENVER (AP) — In keeping with hockey tradition, a tip of the cap to honor Alex Ovechkin and Patrik Laine .They’ve each recorded a hat trick of hat tricks this season.Easy as one, two, three. Or so it may seem.Around the league, there have been 61 hat tricks through the first 770 games of the season — the most since 1995-96 (62), according to research by the NHL stats and information department. Leading the surge are Ovechkin of Washington and Laine of Winnipeg with three each.Hold on to your hat, there’s more: There has been at least one three-goal scorer in 10 of the 13 days leading into to the All-Star break.“I think the reason why,” Avalanche forward Mikko Rantanen succinctly surmised, “is because scoring around the league is up.”Simple, yes. But on target, too.There have been 132 instances of a team scoring six or more goals in a game so far, which is the most since 2005-06. Teams are averaging 3.03 goals per game, which is on pace for the highest-scoring season since the 3.14 in, you guessed it, 1995-96. There has been an 18 percent increase in scoring since the post-expansion low of 2.57 goals per game for teams in 2003-04, before a lockout led to rule changes.Naturally, hat tricks figure to go hand-in-hand with the escalation.“It’s exciting and not something everyone has done,” said Nashville forward Austin Watson , who had his first NHL hat trick on Nov. 25 against Anaheim. “It’s a cool achievement.”Long associated with cricket and soccer, the term hat trick appears to have made its way into the mainstream hockey vernacular when a Toronto businessman offered a hat to any player who scored three goals during an NHL game while visiting his town. As the legend goes, Chicago forward Alex Kaleta went into the shop in 1946 and found a fedora he fancied Columbus Blue Jackets Hats Authentic , according to an NHL.com story . Only, he didn’t have the funds to purchase it. The business owner offered to give it to Kaleta free of charge should he score three goals against the Maple Leafs.Kaleta had four. Presto, a hat trick.These days, hat tricks come in a variety of forms. There’s the natural one (three straight goals by a player), traditional (any three goals, sometimes culminating with a late empty-netter) and of course the “Gordie Howe” (a goal, assist and a fight).The achievement of a hat trick has long been celebrated with fans tossing their hats on the ice. Ever wonder where all those hats go? The Avs, for one, donate the caps to the Denver Rescue Mission.The fastest NHL hat trick took just 21 seconds by Chicago’s Bill Mosienko (1952). The most in a career? Wayne Gretzky, who had 50. Ovechkin has the most of any active player with 23.They’re far from common — this year’s total of 61 so far is just 8 percent of all games. The Great One needed 1,487 games to get his 50.All the increased scoring means the feat may someday lose a bit of its luster. But not yet.“It’s a pretty hard thing to do,” said Minnesota forward Jason Zucker, who had a hat trick on Nov. 9, 2017. “Scoring any goal in this league is a hard thing to do. To do three in one game is pretty incredible.”Ovechkin had two in a four-day window this season, while Laine had a pair over a six-day span, including a five-goal game on Nov. 24.Avalanche captain Gabriel Landeskog gave his first hat trick on Nov. 11, 2017, against Washington the royal treatment. He has the puck in a case with the game sheet and a picture. He said he doesn’t have his puck from the second one, which happened a month later.“I don’t think guys are going out there trying to score hat tricks,” the All-Star Landeskog said. “Guys are going out there trying to help the team win.”As for why there are so many hat tricks this season, Zucker has a simple deduction.“It’s the speed. It’s the skill. It’s the sticks, the way guys shoot pucks now,” Zucker explained. “Guys don’t even have to try to shoot pucks — the sticks do a lot of the work for us.”No need to convince Minnesota’s All-Star goaltender Devan Dubnyk of that.“Teams are discovering ways to create chances and figure how pucks actually go in the net and not just thinking if you throw 50 pucks at the net that you’re going to score a bunch of goals,” Dubnyk said. “It’s understanding how to create offense. You can see it throughout the league this year. There’s a lot of offensive creativity and it’s making it tough for defenses and tough for goalies.”