MONTREAL -- The saying goes that good things come to those who wait. Such is the case for Patrik Berglund.

The St. Louis Blues center scored his first career hat trick, giving him 16 goals in his last 26 games and his team a 4-2 victory against the Montreal Canadiens on Saturday night at the Bell Centre.

"It feels really good," admitted Berglund, who had previously recorded 10 two-goal games. "I've been waiting a long time for that. Going back to St. Louis with four really tough road wins is an even better feeling."

The Blues (29-22-5) matched a season-high four-game winning streak and are 5-1 since Mike Yeo took over the coaching reins.

The Canadiens overcame a slow start but failed yet again to string together consecutive victories and have not won two in a row since a three-game streak from Jan. 3-7.

"This one hurt," defenseman Nathan Beaulieu said. "When you play a good team and you play well and don't get the results you want, it's frustrating.

"You've got to look at some positives tonight. We played a pretty good game but we've got to find ways to win. The losing-and-winning, losing-and-winning just isn't going to cut it so we need to find some answers and find them quick."

Al Montoya stopped 18 shots for the Canadiens (31-18-8) while Jake Allen made 28 saves for St. Louis.

David Perron also scored for the Blues. Shea Weber and Max Pacioretty connected for Montreal, which is starting to feel some heat in the standings with a six-game lead over Ottawa but with four more games played.

"We know we're a playoff team and I think the best way to look at it is we want to be getting better every night and going into the playoffs strong," Beaulieu said. "We can't worry about what other teams are doing; we've got to control what we can in this room. We're just too inconsistent right now."

St. Louis was in control early, outshooting Montreal 5-1 through the first few minutes and opening the scoring for the fourth straight game.

Jaden Schwartz won a battle in the corner and got the puck out to Pietrangelo at the top of the right circle. Montoya slipped as the Blues captain took his shot and Berglund, in front of the net, tipped it home at 3:49.

"I don't really know what happened there in front of the net," Berglund said. "I think the goalie was down from the beginning but I just went to the net and Petro had a great shot-pass to me and I had an open net."

It was the first non-shootout goal Montoya's given up at the Bell Centre this season.

Weber tied it with 3:21 remaining in the opening frame. Pacioretty came out with puck along the right wall and sent it back to Weber at the blue line, who fired a blast through sticks past Allen.

Perron restored St. Louis' lead on a nifty move at 7:20 of the second period. After taking a short backhand drop pass from Jori Lehtera, Perron kicked the puck up to his stick before shooting through Greg Pateryn's legs and beating Montoya five-hole.

A strong shift by Montreal's top line tied the game 5:35 later. Keeping the Blues hemmed in their end for several minutes, Pacioretty made the visitors pay when he redirected Beaulieu's shot from the left wall.

Berglund put the Blues back in front with 25 seconds left on the clock in the second, tipping in Jay Bouwmeester's point shot through traffic.

Montreal pressed for the equalizer in the third, outshooting St. Louis 16-7 in the final frame.

"We had some chances there to tie it," Pacioretty said. "It's not like we played badly tonight; it just didn't go our way offensively. The chances were there, there were some Grade-A opportunities that we weren't able to bury. We've just go to worry about tomorrow now."

The pressure included several Weber shots, including one shift in which Lehtera twice put himself in front of the defenseman's blast.

"Guys are competing for each other and that becomes contagious, when you see your teammate go out and do something like that," Yeo said. "When it's your turn, you want to make sure you do the same for them. This was a hard game. Montreal played really, really well. They made it really difficult on us all night. ... They didn't turn pucks over, they made it hard on us and this was a game where we basically just scratched and clawed a win out of it."

Berglund capped off the hat trick with a goal into an empty net.

NOTES: C Tomas Plekanec played his 900th NHL game -- all with the Canadiens. ... LW Max Pacioretty was in the Montreal lineup after missing the morning skate because of illness, playing in his 139th consecutive game. ... St. Louis C Paul Stastny missed the game after suffering a lower-body injury against the Toronto Maple Leafs on Thursday night. ... The Blues are in the midst of playing 25 of their final 41 games on the road, with 21 of those between Jan. 12 and March 21. ... The Canadiens scratched C David Desharnais, C/W Brian Flynn and D Nikita Nesterov. ... St. Louis scratched RW Nail Yakupov and D Carl Gunnarsson.