St. Louis ? After stuffing the St. Louis Blues for two games, Dominik Hasek looked like an ordinary goaltender.

Keith Tkachuk had his first playoff hat trick as the Blues put a huge dent in Hasek’s aura of invincibility, beating the Detroit Red Wings 6-1 Tuesday night.

St. Louis' Keith Tkachuk salutes the crowd following Game Three of the Blues' Western Conference semifinal series against Detroit. Tkachuk had his first playoff hat trick in the Blues' 6-1 victory over the Red Wings on Tuesday at Savvis Center in St. Louis.

“They were scoring goals, that was the difference,” Hasek said. “A lot of their shots went in. What can I say?”

The Blues shaved their second-round series deficit to 2-1. They got 27 saves from Brent Johnson and will try to even the series Thursday night in St. Louis.

“Hey, we just were getting too many quality scoring chances to not cash in at some point,” said Scott Mellanby. “But Thursday’s going to be that much harder.

“They’ve got a lot of great players and Hasek’s going to bounce back.”

Red Wings coach Scotty Bowman could remember only one worse playoff result in his career, an 8-0 loss against an opponent he couldn’t remember.

“It was a poor publicity score for sure,” Bowman said. “It’s a bad score. We’re not happy about it.”

Tkachuk, who led the Blues with 38 goals during the regular season, has four goals in the postseason. He scored once in each period, putting deflections past Hasek in the first and second periods, then converting Pavol Demitra’s setup on a 3-on-2 break in the third.

The game was delayed for several minutes as fans tossed hats onto the ice, and the Blues were warned they’d be penalized for delay of game.

“I was begging for them to stop,” Tkachuk said. “I didn’t want us to get a penalty.”

The power play also came to life for the Blues, who ended an 0-for-10 drought with a pair of goals. Mellanby scored on a two-man advantage in the first period, and Tkachuk’s second goal came on a power play for St. Louis, which was 2-for-5 overall. The Red Wings’ power play was 0-for-6.

“They capitalized and we didn’t,” Wings forward Darren McCarty said. “We had some good chances, we just didn’t get it done, and they did.”

Demitra had three assists and a short-handed goal, and Chris Pronger had three assists for the Blues, who treated Hasek rudely.

Hasek stopped 58 of 60 shots in the first two games, including his eighth career playoff shutout in Game One. But the Blues built confidence by scoring a pair of third-period goals in a 3-2 Game Two loss, and they scored twice on eight first-period shots in Game Three.

Tkachuk’s third goal at 1:53 of the third made it four goals in only 15 shots against Hasek. Demitra’s fourth goal of the playoffs on the 16th shot chased Hasek at 9:26 as Manny Legace went the rest of the way.

Hasek kept reporters waiting after the game because he was making up for the exercise he missed.

“I had to ride the bike a little bit because I didn’t even sweat,” Hasek said. “I gave up five goals. I wasn’t really busy at all, however. Every third shot was a goal and it’s a little disappointing, but I feel better after I ride the bike.”

Legace gave up a goal on the first shot he faced, with Jamal Mayers scoring unassisted, making it three goals on three shots in the period for St. Louis.

Rookie Pavel Datsyuk got his second goal of the playoffs off Brett Hull’s feed for the Red Wings, who started fast with a 6-1 shots edge in the first five minutes of the game. But the Blues carried play much of the rest of the way.

“We knew they’d come out hot a little bit and try to get up a couple goals from the start,” Johnson said. “We took it from there.”

Mellanby, a 15-goal scorer in 64 regular-season games whose career best is 32, has been the Blues’ big gun in the postseason. He scored his sixth goal and eighth point in eight playoff games.

Tkachuk gave the Blues their first lead of the series, and put the Red Wings in an unaccustomed early hole, when he deflected Demitra’s high shot down and in on the Blues’ second shot of the game. It ended a string of six straight game-opening goals in the postseason by the Red Wings, who scored on their first shot in Game Two and their second in Game One.

It took the Red Wings only 27 seconds to answer. Datsyuk had an empty right side of the net after Hull passed instead of shooting.

St. Louis regained the lead when Mellanby scored with 56.3 seconds left in the period on a 5-on-3 advantage. Mellanby beat Hasek from the left side of the net off a feed from Al MacInnis.

Pronger’s second goal of the playoffs gave the Blues, who never led in the first two games, at two-goal advantage.

Notes: Blues D Alexander Khavanov played for the first time since Game 1 of the opening round. He was a speedier alternative to Marc Bergevin, who played the previous seven games. … The Blues have lost 11 straight series when dropping the first two games. … Blues F Ray Ferraro, considered questionable for Game Three due to an undisclosed injury, took regular shifts. … Scott Young had the Blues’ last playoff hat trick, on April 23, 2000 against the San Jose Sharks.