Undermanned Canucks can’t catch Sharks
Vancouver loses 4-1 at home with 5 players out due to the mumps
VANCOUVER — Patrick Marleau scored the winner and Martin Jones made 35 saves as the San Jose Sharks downed the undermanned Vancouver Canucks 4-1 on Saturday night.
Tomas Hertl, Mikkel Boedker and Logan Couture had the other goals for San Jose (36-18-7). Chris Tierney added two assists. Daniel Sedin replied for Vancouver (26-296), which got 22 stops from Ryan Miller.
The Canucks were without five players because of the mumps, or symptoms associated with the highly contagious virus. Troy Stecher is the only confirmed case, according to the club, but fellow defencemen Chris Tanev and Nikita Tryamkin, along with forwards Mike Chaput and Markus Granlund have all shown symptoms.
Vancouver recalled four players from the American Hockey League’s Utica Comets for the game — defencemen Evan McEneny and Jordan Subban, as well as forwards Alexandre Grenier and Joseph Labate. The 22-year-old McEneny, an undrafted free agent signed in 2012, made his NHL debut, while Subban was a healthy scratch.
The Canucks then lost another defenceman when Luca Sbisa left after the second period with what the team called the flu.
The Sharks have not lost a regular-season game at Rogers Arena since Jan. 21, 2012 — a stretch of 10 games. San Jose sits first in the Pacific Division and second in the Western Conference, while fading Vancouver is nine points back of the second wild-card berth.
HABS 3, LEAFS 2 (OT)
TORONTO — “Desperate” hockey helped the teetering Montreal Canadiens score a big two points on Saturday night.
Andrew Shaw scored the overtime winner and Carey Price was stellar with 32 saves as the Canadiens beat the Maple Leafs for the 14th consecutive time, a 3-2 triumph at the Air Canada Centre. The victory offered the sputtering Habs some much-needed cushioning in an increasingly tight Atlantic Division.
Montreal now has 74 points, four up on Ottawa (70) and five up on Toronto (69) — which equalled its point total from all of last season by getting to overtime.
“I thought we played very desperate hockey tonight and responded well from our previous game,” said Price, who stopped an Auston Matthews breakaway and hat-trick attempt moments before Shaw got the winner.
Max Pacioretty and Alex Galchenyuk also scored for Montreal.
It was just the third win in 11 games (3-7-1) for the Canadiens and second under new head coach Claude Julien.
“This is the stretch of the year that gets tough,” said Shaw. “There’s tight games and the teams with character and the teams with heart that are going to find the ways to win.”
Looking for their first win over Montreal since Jan. 18, 2014, the Leafs got on the board first on a strange goal midway through the opening frame.
Matthews drove into the Canadiens zone with speed, pulled up and fired a shot that pinged off the outstretched stick and then arm of Alexei Emelin before bouncing off the ice and between the pads of Price. It was the 19-year-old’s team-leading 29th goal and 53rd point of the season.
The goal was also Matthews’ 11th to open a game this year — tops among NHL players — and 10th point (five goals, five assists) over the last 10 games.
Price was sharp in a middle period that saw Toronto outshoot Montreal 12-5. He turned aside two good chances from Connor Brown and Matthews on a Leafs power play — stopping all eight of their shots with the man advantage.
“He was our best player tonight,” Shaw said of Price, who entered the night with an .898 save percentage in February.
Matthews tied it at 2-2 with his second of the game 79 seconds into the third, just getting his stick on a feed from Hyman. He became the third Leafs rookie ever to hit the 30-goal plateau, joining Wendel Clark and Daniel Marois. Matthews needs five goals to break Clark’s rookie franchise record of 34.