Sharks notch a critical 3-1 win over Coyotes to keep their slim playoff hopes alive.
San Jose gets by Arizona, keeps its bid for berth in playoffs alive
SAN JOSE — What started out as a laugher turned into a bit of a nail-biter Friday night, but at the end the Sharks had a 3-1 victory over the Arizona Coyotes — and playoff ambitions that refuse to die.
“We’re what, three points out? You never know what happens,” said forward Logan Couture, whose goal on the game’s first shot staked San Jose to an early lead. “That’s basically what we’re saying in here, you never know. Give ourselves a chance, and you never know.”
The win gave San Jose nine of the 10 possible points in the past five games and, yes, pulled the Sharks within three points of the second wild-card spot in the Western Conference as well as within four points of third place in the Pacific Division.
Still, Couture and the rest of the Sharks are well aware that even if they do run the table their last four games, it will still take multiple losses by two of the three teams they are chasing to squeak into the postseason.
Against Arizona, the Sharks came out flying with Couture taking an errant pass from
Tomas Hertl in his skates and kicking it to the blade of the stick for a shot that beat Coyotes backup goalie Louis Domingue 58 seconds after the opening faceoff.
“Playing with Hertl, he doesn’t like to pass on the tape,” Couture could joke after the win. “He throws all his passes to the feet. I knew it was going there. I’m a lefty in soccer, so I’m better with my left foot.”
The Sharks continued to apply pressure, and their lead doubled a little more than four minutes later. Three seconds after a power play ended, Joe Pavelski took a behind-the-net pass from Patrick Marleau and one-timed it into the Arizona net for a 2-0 lead.
Whatever the Sharks had going for them in a first period that saw them outshoot Arizona 16-3 wasn’t there when the second began.
Arizona came out more energized, and it paid off early. An offensive zone turnover resulted in an oddman rush for the Coyotes, and when Mark Arcobello tried to center the puck, it deflected past Antti Niemi off the tip of Brent Burns’ stick at 2:34.
“We just got off our game,” Pavelski said of his team’s play early in the second. “Just a couple turnovers, outnumbered rushes — that’s what we had gotten away from. Take care of that, and we got the performance we wanted.”
The Sharks regained momentum but still couldn’t add to their lead until late in the third period when Matt Nieto used his backhand to lift a rebound of a shot by linemate Chris Tierney over Domingue at 14:10.
Coach Todd McLellan was asked what stands out about his team’s play over the past five games, and his answer seemed to describe Friday night’s win perfectly.
“We’re getting pretty solid goaltending, not perfect defensively, but we’re focusing a little bit more on that,” he said. “We’re getting some timely goals. We’re not getting a lot of them, but we’re getting some timely ones.”
Couture rejected the idea that as the Sharks’ winning streak continues, it becomes more frustrating to depend on results of other games involving the Calgary Flames, Los Angeles Kings and Winnipeg Jets.
“We put ourselves in this position, we have no one to blame but ourselves,” he said. “We can’t change anything. We can’t go back and win games that we lost. We can only win the games that are ahead of us.”
And the next one is against these same Coyotes on the road Saturday night.
Forward Mike Brown n played in only his ninth game all season, returning to action after missing the past 47 games recovering from a broken leg. The game was also the first as a Shark for defenseman Karl Stollery, acquired from the Colorado Avalanche at the trade deadline to replace injured Marc-Edouard Vlasic.
Barclay Goodrow n dropped the gloves with Coyotes defenseman John Moore late in the second period. It was the first NHL fight for the Sharks rookie.