SAN JOSE
– Patrick Marleau scored twice in the second period as the San
Jose Sharks rallied past the Edmonton Oilers 4-2 Tuesday at
sold-out HP Pavilion.
SAN JOSE – Patrick Marleau scored twice in the second period as the San Jose Sharks rallied past the Edmonton Oilers 4-2 Tuesday at sold-out HP Pavilion.
Winning for only the second time in eight games, the Sharks improved to 85 points and a 22-point lead over second-place Dallas in the Pacific Division.
San Jose hosts Los Angeles Thursday night and Atlanta on Saturday before beginning a four-game road trip Monday in Dallas.
Marleau, sixth in the NHL in goal-scoring entering Tuesday’s game, brought the Sharks into a 2-2 tie with an even-strength goal (31) with 1:48 gone in the second. Marleau tapped home his 32nd of the campaign off a Mike Grier feed while the Sharks were killing a penalty at the 5:43 mark to make it 3-2.
San Jose jumped out to a 1-0 lead with 10:08 gone in the first period. Milan Michalek stole the puck along the sideboards in the Oiler zone and passed to Joe Pavelski. The winger snapped a shot from the high slot over the shoulder of goalie Dwayne Roloson for his 17th goal of the year.
Edmonton handled the rest of the scoring for the period.
Zach Stortini, owner of three goals and 135 penalty minutes entering play, pounced on a loose puck in the low slot and jammed the puck past Evgeni Nabokov at 12:18 of the first to make it 1-1. Sheldon Souray’s hard blast from outside the blueline banged off the end boards and into the slot to ignite an Oiler go-ahead power play goal. Erik Cole hustled to the puck in the low slot and scored at 19:08 as Nabokov tried too late to move from behind the net to get between the pipes.
“That was a bad bounce,” said Pavelski. “As bad a bounce as you can get. There wasn’t any sense of panic, any danger, on the bench.”
San Jose drew into a 2-2 deadlock when Marleau cruised across the top of the slot and sent a blast into the top right corner of the net off feeds from Jonathan Cheechoo and Douglas Murray.
Penalties by Marleau at 3:30 and Marc-Edouard Vlasic at 3:51 led to a 5-on-3 power play for the Oilers. As Marleau left the box at the end of two minutes, the captain joined a rush up-ice with Grier.
“I just gave it to (Grier) and he did all the rest,” Marleau said of the game-winner. Marleau sped to the edge of the crease and redirected Grier’s soft feed from the right flank into the net.
Joe Thornton added his 14th goal of the year 19:06 into the second to complete the scoring. Thornton set up the play by stealing the puck in the Oiler zone and passing to Lukas Kaspar. The rookie’s shot was rebuffed by Roloson, but the long rebound set up Thornton for the 15-foot snap shot into the open net.
“It was an emotional second period (56 penalty minutes),” said San Jose coach Todd McLellan.
“The first period, you could tell we were coming back from a long trip and we were a little sluggish. (Edmonton) had played three games in four nights, so it wasn’t a real polished period.”
San Jose finished with a 31-26 edge in shots on net, paced by Pavelski and Rob Blake with five apiece.
