In San Jose, the visiting Los Angeles Kings posted two goals in the opening stanza on Thursday night, and then held off the Sharks for a 2-1 win.
With the win, the Kings kept pace with the rest of the Western Conference contenders for the wild card spots.
The Kings hold the second card, and trail the Nashville Predators bu one for the first card.
David Rittich made 15 saves in the win.
The Kings improved to 40-25-11.
“We’ll take the win,” Los Angeles interim coach Jim Hiller said. “They played hard. We didn’t give them much. Didn’t like our power play, but we got the win, so we’ll just move forward from here.”
LA took a 1-0 lead midway through the first period on a strike by Adrian Kempe, scoring off a breakaway.
“To get a good start was really important,” LA’s Pierre-Luc Dubois said. “We did that, and that was the difference-maker tonight.”
“It felt amazing,” Thomas said. “For me, I just wanted to have a good first (period). To score in the first period kind of just made the nerves go away and made me feel a little bit more comfortable.”
The Sharks dropped to 17-50-8 with their 11th loss in 12 matches.
“I didn’t love our team’s first period. We played much better in the second and third,” San Jose coach David Quinn said. “They know they’re good. Nobody’s nervous, nobody’s rattled. The guy who has the puck knows he’s good, and then he looks around and sees the other four guys and he knows they’re pretty good. So [they] play with a little different swagger and poise and calmness.”
The game stayed 2-0 to LA until San Jose’s Klim Kostin scored with less than two minutes left on the game clock for the 2-1 final count on the scoreboard. 
Mackenzie Blackwood made 25 saves in the loss.
“I thought we learned and got better as some of the game went on as far as gapping up and not letting them build that speed through the neutral zone,” Sharks forward Luke Kunin said.
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