In San Jose, the Sharks’ Martin Jones made 26 saves in a 4-2 win over the Minnesota Wild on Wednesday night.
The Sharks took both games of the set from the Wild.
“We all know that there’s a lot of work ahead and it’s an uphill,” Sharks head coach Bob Boughner said. “It’s just concentrating on we’re playing [each night] and let’s play our game and stay within ourselves.”
Kirill Kaprizov and Mats Zuccarello were the Wild goal scorers.
“I think we didn’t play our best in the first two [periods],” Zuccarello said. “When you play like we did in the third, move, everyone in sync and play with desperation, I think that’s how we’ve got to play all periods, every game.
“Got to give credit to them too. They played a good game, they’re a good team over there. But yeah, it’s frustrating to not get a win for sure.”
San Jose took a 2-0 lead on goals from Rudolfs Balcers and Ryan Donato in the middle frame.
“We’ve been getting chances, I just think holding on to pucks and getting pucks to the net, sometimes we have the tendency to pass out of situations,” Donato said. “… [Burns] is always good to shoot the puck and I was ready to crash the net and I was lucky to score.”
Nikolai Knyzhov picked up his first NHL goal for the Sharks after Kaprizov had cut the lead to 2-1.
“There’s not much to say, that was just a great play by [Hertl and Karlsson],” Knyzhov said. “I wasn’t expecting that pass, but that was awesome. I give a lot of credit to [Karlsson].”
Zuccarello made it 3-2, but Evander Kane potted an empty-net goal for the final.
Kaapo Kahkonen made 29 saves in the loss.
“There’s a lot of season left,” the Wild’s Jared Spurgeon said. “You can’t just look at these two games and start pouting. We didn’t play our best the first two periods. I thought we responded in the third. But we got two games left on this road trip starting tomorrow (at the Vegas Golden Knights) and we can turn this thing around real quick.”
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