Sharks: Donskoi’s late goal lifts San Jose past Calgary
CALGARY, Alberta — Joonas Donskoi made an immediate impact in his return to the Sharks’ lineup.
The San Jose wing scored the winner with 2:48 left in the third period and also had an assist to lead the Sharks to a 3-2 victory over the Flames on Thursday.
“He was awesome,” Sharks head coach Peter DeBoer said. “He was on the puck all night, hounding it, carrying it, making plays. I thought he was one of our better players.”
Aaron Dell made 32 stops to improve to 6-3-1.
On the deciding goal, Joe Thornton’s shot was stopped, but with the puck lying loose between Calgary goalie Mike Smith’s pads, Donskoi was able to poke it over the line for his eighth goal.
“It’s never easy to come back,” said Donskoi, who missed six games with a lower-body injury. “No matter how hard you practice, it’s different to play a game. I’m super excited to be back.”
Justin Braun began the sequence by knocking Johnny Gaudreau off the puck in the Sharks’ end after he tried to turn back up ice. It resulted in a 3-on-2 for San Jose.
“You can’t turn back with three minutes left, you can’t turn back, you have to play forward,” Calgary head coach Glen Gulutzan said. “You can’t turn back. We needed to get points. We needed to take that into overtime and get the points. We’re good at 3-on-3.”
Gaudreau was asked if he would make that same play if he had a chance to do it over again.
“It’s a tough play,” Gaudreau said. “I probably have to get it in deep, but that’s the way it goes sometimes.”
Smith, who made 26 saves, wasn’t happy, either.
“The last goal, it’s got to be stopped,” he said. “It’s a stoppable puck, a controllable puck, so it’s on me.”
Donskoi’s linemates, Chris Tierney and Timo Meier, also had a goal and an assist each to round out the scoring for San Jose.
Trailing 2-1, the Flames tied it at 7:39 of the third period when Garnet Hathaway neatly set up Gaudreau on a 2-on-1.
The Sharks had taken their first lead halfway through the second period on Tierney’s eighth goal of the season on a power play.
Power plays were a key story line in the game with the Sharks going 1-for-3. Calgary could not generate anything in going 0-for-3. That included squandering a 37-second, two-man advantage early in the second period.
“It took a lot of zip out of us and I thought they got some juice out of those kills,” Gulutzan said.