The San Jose Sharks’ Martin Jones made 24 saves in a 3-0 shut out of the Minnesota Wild in St Paul on Monday night.
The win pushed the Sharks back into first place in the Pacific Division, ahead of the idle Calgary Flames.
Martin Jones got the shutout for the Sharks – File photo by Jack Lima
“I think we’re playing hard, we’re getting in on the forecheck, playing a hard style which I think you need on any fourth line,” the Sharks’ Barclay Goodrow said.
For the Sharks, it was their fifth straight win and they improved to 42-19-8.
“I think everybody kind of clamps down a little bit come playoff time. We’ve won games in all sorts of different ways this year, so yeah, it’s nice to have that and build some confidence going into the playoffs,” Jones said.
San Jose’s offense came from Goodrow, Tomas Hertl and Logan Couture.
“I thought in the first period we didn’t play very well,” Couture said. “[Jones] shut the door for us and kept us in it while we got our feet moving. I don’t think we played a great game, but we played well enough to win and he was outstanding.”
The Wild dropped to 33-29-8 and still hold the second wild card spot by virtue of the Arizona Coyotes being routed by the Chicago Blackhawks on Monday night.
“It’s not the result we wanted. Let’s not kid ourselves. We played a pretty good team tonight and I thought our problem quite frankly is when we get the opportunities to score, we have to score,” Wild coach Bruce Boudreau said. “We haven’t got enough pure scorers to not take advantage, and in the first period, I thought we had two or three really good chances to score but we didn’t take advantage. Kevin Fiala had a chance to open up the second I think, or open up the third, and when it was 1-0 and we didn’t score. When you don’t take advantage of your chances, usually bad things are going to happen.”
[WATCH: All Sharks vs. Wild highlights]
Devan Dubnyk made 26 saves in the loss.
“The (playoff) margin is that thin right now, and we’ve just got to accept that and realize every play matters and go from there,” Dubnyk said. “You just can’t let this one game get us down and on a bad run like before. We just can’t let that happen right now. We’ve got to find a way to feel good about ourselves and get back to doing what we were doing.”
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