Blues notch first victory of season

TORONTO -- Doug Weight and the St. Louis Blues weren't about to blow another lead.

Keith Tkachuk and Pavol Demitra each had a goal and an assist, and Weight scored his first goal for St. Louis in the Blues' 5-2 victory over the Toronto Maple Leafs on Saturday night.

Sergei Varlamov and Cory Stillman also scored for the Blues, who won for the first time in four games this season.

"We could have won all three of our previous games, but you have to play 60 minutes," Weight said. "We played on our heels when we had the lead, and we paid for it. Tonight we played aggressive for the whole 60 minutes, and it was a great victory."

The Blues, who reloaded over the summer, traded starting goalie Roman Turek and let top scorer Pierre Turgeon leave as a free agent, got off to a poor start this season. They tied their first two games against Columbus and Nashville, and blew a 4-2 third-period lead against Los Angeles last Thursday.

But the Blues took an early lead against Toronto, and made it stand.

"We needed a win bad. Obviously, we weren't happy with our last three games," Tkachuk said. "Anytime you have team down 3-0, you have to put them away right away, and not give them a chance."

Travis Green and Robert Reichel scored for the Maple Leafs.

Tkachuk, acquired from Phoenix before last season's trade deadline, poked in his own rebound at 5:35 of the first to give St. Louis a 1-0 lead. Varlamov skated from behind the net and flicked the puck over Curtis Joseph's glove for a 2-0 lead at 8:38.

Weight, acquired from Edmonton over the summer, gave the Blues a 3-0 lead on a power-play goal at 8:46 of the second when he paused for a few seconds before snapping a wrist shot past Joseph.

Demitra scored his fourth goal of the season at 13:25 to make it 4-0.

Joseph allowed five goals on 24 shots for the Maple Leafs, who have just two wins in five games.

Toronto narrowed it to 4-1 on a power-play goal at 15:02 of the second when Green tipped in Bryan McCabe's shot from the point. Stillman made it 5-1 at 16:56.

Reichel scored for Toronto at 18:50 of the second to make it 5-2.