Sharks rally for shootout victory
Alexander Barabanov scored in the fifth round of the shootout and the San Jose Sharks rallied to beat the Minnesota Wild 3-2 on Sunday, giving the visitors consecutive wins for the first time this season.
Steven Lorentz and Nico Sturm scored in regulation and James Reimer made 28 saves for San Jose, which was coming off a 5-4 win at Dallas on Friday night.
“We addressed it before the game that we won a game the other night, but we can’t win a game and then drop three or four in a row again,” Sturm said.
Tied at 1 after four shooters apiece, Barabanov’s wrist shot from low in the left circle beat Filip Gustavsson between the pads. Nick Bonino also scored in the shootout; the first San Jose has won in four attempts this season.
Kirill Kaprizov scored in the shootout for Minnesota, which got regulation goals from Freddy Gaudreau and Connor Dewar. Gustavsson finished with 35 saves.
“We got what we asked for tonight,” Wild coach Dean Evason said. “I don’t know any other way to describe it. It was a dumb loss. We played so east, west, so cute. Not straight forward. All of
the cliches. We didn’t deserve to win that hockey game tonight.”
With the Sharks down by two in the latter half of the third period, Lorentz and Sturm scored just under two minutes apart to tie it.
Lorentz poked home his second attempt at a rebound Gustavsson couldn’t control with 6:04 left. Then a harmless-looking shot from the right circle by Sturm banked in off Gustavsson’s arm with 4:11 remaining. Sturm played 111 games from 2019-22 for the Wild.
Minnesota had not allowed a goal in 140:33 prior to the two tallies, including a 1-0 win Friday in Seattle.
“We could have easily got really down and packed it in after we went down 2-0 and we
didn’t. We kept coming,” Sharks coach David Quinn said. “I know they probably don’t love the second goal, but we don’t love their second goal either. … We really competed and that was a nutsy win.”
With Minnesota up by 1-0 early in the third period, Dewar scored short-handed on a play that began in a most unlikely way. On a San Jose power play, Erik Karlsson tripped and fell while skating backward parallel to the blue line. Mason Shaw got the puck and led a two-man breakaway into the Sharks end and passed to Dewar, who beat Reimer stick side for his first goal of the year and first in 29 games.
Stars 5, Flyers 1: Joe Pavelski scored a goal and added two assists
and Jake Oettinger recorded 37 saves to lead visiting Dallas over Philadelphia. Matej Blumel, Esa Lindell, Luke Glendening and Jason Robertson all scored for Dallas.
Bruins 5, Canucks 1: Patrice Bergeron scored his third goal in two days and Boston set a team record with its ninth straight home win to start the season, beating Vancouver. The Bruins bettered the team’s 8-0 start at the old Boston Garden in 198384.
Lightning 6, Capitals 3: Mikhail Sergachev had two goals and two assists during a four-goal first period, and host Tampa Bay beat Washington. Sergachev is the first NHL defenseman to have a four-point period since Toronto’s Morgan Rielly in 2019.