In San Jose, the acquisition of Vincent Lecavalier by the Los Angeles Kings continued to pay dividends as he scored late in the third period to force overtime with the Sharks.
“It definitely feels good, 12 seconds left,” Lecavalier said. “It’s a great play by [Brown]. We actually had eye contact when he went to the corner he saw me behind the net kind of going in front of the net. It was a perfect play. I was just there at right time.”
Marian Gaborik then scored on a breakaway in overtime to win the game, 3-2, for the Kings.
“It definitely feels great to contribute with a goal,” Gaborik said. “It’s been a while. I had a half-breakaway and just tried to go high glove, and I’m glad it went in.”
Drew Doughty scored early in the third period to tie the score at one all before Logan Couture gave the Sharks a 2-1 lead.
“Obviously we want to hunt them down,” Sharks coach Peter DeBoer said. “They didn’t lock up the division tonight that I know of, did they? So we like how we’re playing and we’re going to chase them right to the final buzzer.”
Joe Pavelski also scored for the Sharks and Joe Thornton extended his point streak to nine games with an assist on Pavelski’s goal.
“We feel we can play against anybody, and that’s a good feeling to have,” Thornton said. “We have a great feeling in this locker room. We feel we have our home game in control now. It took us a while, but we feel confident at home, and our road record speaks for itself. We thought we had them. But that’s hockey. It’s a good hockey team and you can’t hang your heads after a lot like that. We played great and we’ll get better results in the future.”
Martin Jones took the loss on 29 saves.
“We’re playing good on the road,” Kings coach Darryl Sutter said. “Did last night too. Overcame a little adversity, being down a goal. Probably the difference tonight was special teams, clearly. They have a dominant power play. We were able to kill four, and Drew scores a big power play goal for us.”
Jhonas Enroth made 30 saves for the Kings win.
“Needed him to win a game,” Sutter said. “Backup goalies, their job is they got to play in tough situations. They got to win. He needed to win. He hadn’t won [since Nov. 12]. He needed to win. He didn’t get a lot of work, but he had to make some big saves.”
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