Strong start paves way for win
Matt Tennyson and Chris Tierney scored in the first period and the Sharks skated past the Arizona Coyotes 4-1 on Saturday night at SAP Center.
Tomas Hertl and Joonas Donskoi also scored for the Sharks, who are 6-0-3 at home since a 2-8 mark in their previous 10 contests.
Martin Jones stopped 22 shots for his second straight win. He’s 10-2-2 over his past 14 games. Melker Karlsson and Brent Burns each had two assists for San Jose.
Martin Hanzal scored for the Coyotes, who lost their fifth in six games against San Jose. Louis Domingue stopped 24 shots but fell to 1-4-1 in his past six games.
Tennyson, appearing in back-to-back games for the first time since early December, got the Sharks on the board three minutes in. He scored his second goal by firing a shot that Domingue could not get down in time to stop.
Logan Couture, who has points in his past four games, set up Tennyson with a nice pass from the side.
Tierney extended the lead by tapping in a hard pass from Burns from the top of the crease.
Hanzal cut the Sharks’ lead in half early in the second period, beating Jones to the glove side.
Moments after his apparent goal was disallowed because he deflected the puck with a a high stick, Hertl made it 3-1 midway through the third period. He redirected a pass that beat Domingue to the glove side.
Donskoi added an empty-net goal with 1:19 to play.