>>Blackhawks Blast Wild

Patrick Kane had a hat trick, Brandon Saad scored twice and Chicago beat the Minnesota Wild 5-2 on Thursday night for its fourth victory in five games.

Kane completed his fifth career regular-season hat trick and first since March 2017 by scoring into an empty net with 26.9 seconds left. He leads the Blackhawks with 20 goals and 47 points, and has five goals and five assists during a six-game point streak.

Collin Delia made 46 saves, and Jonathan Toews, Erik Gustafsson and Dylan Strome each had two assists for Chicago, tied for last place with St. Louis in the Central Division.

Zach Parise and Eric Staal scored for the Wild, who dropped their season-worst fifth straight (0-4-1).

Chicago went 2 for 4 on the power play, scoring more than one goal with the man advantage for the first time this season.

The Blackhawks are at Colorado on Saturday.

>>Blues Down Sabres

Robert Thomas had a goal and an assist and Jake Allen made 30 saves to lead the St. Louis Blues to a 4-1 victory over the Sabres on Thursday night.

Jay Bouwmeester, Pat Maroon and Ryan O'Reilly scored for the Blues.

Jack Eichel scored his 15th goal of the season in the second period for the Sabres.

Carter Hutton stopped 28 of 32 shots in his first appearance against St. Louis after spending the previous two seasons with the Blues. He lost his third consecutive start and fell to 13-11-2 on the season and 0-3-3 against his former teammates.

Allen improved to 13-10-4. He has won five of his last seven starts and improved to 6-1-0 against Buffalo.

Bouwmeester pushed the lead to 2-0 10:01 into the second period. He one-timed a feed from David Perron and scored his first goal since Feb. 13, 2018, at Nashville.

Maroon added some insurance when he backhanded a pass from Thomas past Hutton while positioned behind the goal line. It was his third goal of the season.

O'Reilly put the game out of reach when he scored his team-leading 14th goal of the season late in the third period. 

The Blues host Pittsburgh on Saturday.