Quinn Hughes scores 2 and Thatcher Demko has 22 saves as Canucks beat Blues 5-0

VANCOUVER -- — Quinn Hughes scored two goals, Thatcher Demko stopped 22 shots and the Vancouver Canucks won their third consecutive game 5-0 over the St. Louis Blues on Friday night.

J.T. Miller scored short-handed and added two assists for Vancouver (5-2-0). Phil Di Giuseppe had a goal and an assist, Ilya Mikheyev scored once and Elias Petterson had two assists.

“We were ready to play,” Hughes said. “They were on a back-to-back and came out a little slow. We just jumped on them. ... I think we could clean up some stuff in the third. We got a little loose. For the most part it was a good game.”

Combined with an 8-1 win against the Edmonton Oilers in the season-opener, the Canucks have outscored their opponents 13-1 in two home games.

“You look at the good teams around the league, it sucks sometimes going to play in those buildings,” Demko said after getting his fourth career shutout. “You know they are going to come out strong every game. That’s kind of what we want to establish here. ... We take a lot of pride playing in Vancouver. These performances at home start to compound.”

Demko made one of his best saves of the game early in the third period. Blues center Brayden Schenn made a nice move to get past the Canucks' defense, then skated wide and aimed a low shot for the corner of the net that Demko stopped with his right pad.

Jordan Binnington stopped 30 shots for the Blues (3-3-1), who were playing on back-to-back nights after beating the Flames 3-0 in Calgary on Thursday.

“You’re going to lose hockey games, but you can’t be losing them like that,” Schenn said. “You’re not even giving yourself a chance. ... We have to clean that up. We can’t have an A game and then a D game. We’ve got to be consistent and we haven’t found that yet.”

Hughes got his first goal when he took a cross-ice pass from Filip Hronek and scored on a seeing-eye shot through traffic that beat Binnington on the glove side at 7:59 of the first period.

Vancouver broke the game open with three second-period goals, two of them 70 seconds apart.

Hughes scored his second at 5:48 when he flipped a puck in front of the net that hit the skate of St. Louis forward Kevin Hayes and deflected past Binnington. It was his second career two-goal game and first since Feb. 1, 2020, against the New York Islanders. He now has three goals on the season.

“I’m just trying to shoot it more,” the Canucks' captain said. “I feel a lot more dangerous than I have in the past.”

Di Giuseppe scored at 6:58 when he took a pass from Tyler Myers, skated between two Blues defensemen, and beat Binnington between his pads.

Miller made it 4-0 with a short-handed breakaway at 8:52. Mikheyev made it 5-0 at 6:35 of the third period.

UP NEXT:

Blues: At Colorado on Wednesday night before a four-game homestand.

Canucks: Host the New York Rangers on Saturday night.

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AP NHL: https://www.apnews.com/hub/NHL