Nathan Walker became the first Australian NHLer to score a hat trick in the NHL as the St. Louis Blues dominated the Detroit Red Wings 6-2 Thursday night.
Walker, originally from Cardiff, Wales, started his ice hockey career in the Outback before moving to the Czech Republic in 2007 and then working his way up through the USA Hockey pyramid starting in 2013 with the USHL's Youngstown Phantoms. Prior to tonight, Walker had only played in 25 career NHL games with 3 total goals.
Walker actually scored the first two goals of the night at the 6:17 and 16:47 marks of the first period, his first two of the 2021-22 season. These would be the only goals by either team in the first frame of regulation time. In the 2nd period, Detroit cut the St. Louis lead in half courtesy of Robby Fabri (7) at 4:17. At 16:01, Colton Parayko (2) would restore the 2-goal Blues lead, 3-1 St. Louis heading into the 2nd intermission.
In the 3rd period, Walker tipped in his hat-raining goal at 9:27 to make it 4-1 St. Louis. Then less than a minute later, Ivan Barbashev (9) made it 5-1 Blues. And while Detroit would respond with Fabri's 2nd of the game, (8), Marco Scandella (1) banged one home in the empty Detroit cage with 6 seconds remaining to make it 6-2 St. Louis.
Oddly enough, Detroit managed to outshoot, outhit, log more penalty minutes and win more faceoffs than the Blues, with 31-26, 16-11, 6-2, and 27-16 edges.
Next up for the Blues is a Saturday evening, Dec. 11 home clash against the Montreal Canadiens at 7 PM. For Detroit, they head west for a Dec. 10 matchup against their late 1990s rival Colorado Avalanche at 9 PM.
Comments