Sharks snap win drought

In Edmonton, the visiting San Jose Sharks found only their second win in the last 11 matches, 3-2, over the Oilers.

Brent Burns, Marcus Sorensen and Gustav Nyquist scored for the Sharks.

Brent Burns had a goal in Sharks’ rare win – file photo by Jack Lima

Aaron Dell made 26 saves to get the win.

“You have to close out those one-goal games in the playoffs, and I thought we did a great job of that tonight,” Dell said. “These are tough games to play where they are going to be cheating for offense a little bit, and it was a good opportunity to make sure we work on those things that we have had a hard time with. I thought we did a great job with that tonight.”

Leon Draisaitl scored his 48th and 49th goals of the campaign.

“I think it was a little bit of an up and down (game),” Draisaitl said. “I think that we had a decent first, and then we lulled a little bit in the second, but I thought the third was really good, we battled really hard, and I thought it was a good effort.”

The game had little impact on anything but getting the Sharks to feel what it is like to win.

“We were OK, but I didn’t think we were great defensively,” San Jose center Logan Couture said. “We still gave up a lot of chances. We had a few breakdowns. We are going to need to improve on that. I thought we sat on our heels a bit too much. I would have liked to have seen us attack a little more.”

The Sharks face the Vegas Golden Knights in the first round of the playoffs.

“We won, I’m not going to overthink it,” Sharks coach Peter DeBoer said. “It was a tough game to play on both ends with the situations everyone is in. We found a way to win a game. I thought we did some good stuff that we can use next week in the playoffs. It was good to get a win.”