Jason Smith, Ales Hemsky and Jarret Stoll scored third-period goals as the Edmonton Oilers rallied for a 6-3 victory over the San Jose Sharks Friday, tying the Western Conference semifinal series 2-2.
Smith took a pass from Sergei Samsonov from the corner, skated in alone on Sharks goalie Vesa Toskala and beat him with a backhand deke 2:57 into the third period to give the Sharks their first lead after trailing 3-1 midway through the second period.
Game 5 in the best-of-seven series is Sunday in San Jose, with Game 6 back in Edmonton on Wednesday night.
PHOTO: AP
The Sharks scored on their first two shots and, despite being badly outshot, led 3-1 halfway through the game.
Heading into the game, Toskala had stopped 94 of 99 shots the first three games.
But that changed at 12:28 of the second, when Ethan Moreau's shot hit the end boards and took a funny bounce back to Michael Peca, who launched a desperation shot from the side of the net that managed to squeeze under Toskala's pads.
Less than 3 minutes later, the Oilers killed off a penalty on Sergei Samsonov by lofting the puck down the ice toward Toskala, and Samsonov raced out of the penalty box after the puck. Toskala scrambled out to meet him halfway, tried to sweep the puck away but instead it bounced off Samsonov and the speedy Russian simply backhanded the puck into the empty net to tie the score.
The Sharks never recovered and in the third period their defense collapsed. After Smith's go-ahead goal, Smyth raced down the left side and fired a pass through the slot for an easy tip-in by Ales Hemsky at 8:19.
With that, Toskala was replaced by Evgeni Nabokov.
Jarret Stoll finished the scoring on a power-play, sending a slapshot past a screened Nabokov at 14:00.
Shawn Horcoff, who got the game-winner in the third overtime of Game 3 on Wednesday night, also scored for Edmonton.
Joe Thonrton, Nils Ekman and Jonathan Cheechoo had San Jose's goals.
The Sharks opened the scoring less than 4 minutes into the game. A blocked shot at the Sharks blue line led to an odd-man rush that ended when Ekman waltzed around a sprawling Jaroslav Spacek and passed over to Scott Thornton at the side of the net for an easy one-timer past Dwayne Roloson at 3:47.
Ekman made it 2-0 at 6:40, taking a back-handed pass from Patrick Marleau and one-timing it past Roloson low to the stickside.
The Oilers got their first goal at 12:55, when Horcoff tipped Smith's slap shot between Toskala's legs.
The Sharks went up 3-1 in the second period after Oilers defenseman Chris Pronger committed a rare giveaway in his own zone. Thornton jumped on it, raced past Pronger, swooped around the net and shoveled the puck to Cheechoo, who put it between Roloson's legs at 9:02.
Just over 3 minutes later, Peca started the comeback.
Finland blanked the US 4-0 Friday to stay unbeaten, while Olympic champion Sweden also closed in on a quarterfinal spot by beating Belarus 4-1.
With the win, Finland moved to second place in the Group E standings with five points, one behind idle Canada. The Czech Republic, which beat Norway 3-1 earlier, is third with four points. The US is fourth with two points. The top four teams in each group move into the quarterfinals next week.
Finnish goalie Antero Niittymaki stopped 23 shots in earning his second shutout of the tournament.
"We had a difficult time in the beginning, but then we started to skate better and work better," Finnish head coach Erkka Westerlund said.
"And, of course, Antero Niittymaki was very good when we had difficult times."
Yan Stastny missed a penalty shot for the US just 2:21 into the game after Mikko Luoma hooked the American forward, who broke away alone in front of the Finnish net.
Finland, which has 10 players returning from the squad that lost the Olympic final to Sweden, took the lead midway through the first period when Mikko Koivu knocked a rebound past American goalie Craig Anderson.
Anderson, who had the best goals-against-average and top save percentage in the tournament going into the game, gave up another goal early in the second period when Sean Bergenheim beat him with a shot between the pads.
Petteri Nummelin added a power-play goal halfway through the session, beating Anderson with a wrister to the stick side.
Lasse Kukkonen finished scoring with less than six minutes left of the game.
Michael Nylander, Jonas Nordquist, Magnus Johansson and Per Hallberg scored for Sweden, which also remained unbeaten.
Russia, which was idle, tops Group F with six points. Sweden has five, Switzerland four and Belarus two.
Belarus forward Sergei Zadelenov ended Swedish goalie Johan Holmquist's shutout bid at 9:14 of the third period, intercepting a poor clearance pass by Sweden's Mattias Timander and beating Holmquist with a wrist shot.
Sweden outshot Belarus 42-23, and Belarus coach Glen Hanlon said the game reflected why Sweden was rated first and Belarus ranked 12th in the International Ice Hockey Federation's world rankings.
"They were the bigger faster hockey team and the world champion and we were definitely sitting back waiting to see what would happen," Hanlon said. "After we kind of relaxed and got into it a little bit we played a little bit better."
Forward Henrik Zetterberg said his team was looking forward to playing some of the tournament's other stalwarts, like Canada and Russia.
"I think we're confident. It's going to be fun to play a little different style of hockey and to play a little better teams," Zetterberg said.
Like many of the teams at the World championship, Sweden brought a younger lineup than it has in past years.
Switzerland also kept its unbeaten run, tying Slovakia 2-2 when forward Sandy Jeannin scored with 1:56 left in the game.
The Czech Republic rallied to beat Norway 3-1 on goals by Jan Hlavac, Jaroslav Balastik and Petr Tenkrat after Morten Ask had opened the scoring on a power-play.
In the relegation pool, Italy beat Kazakhstan 3-2 and Slovenia drew 3-3 with Denmark.
Bayer 04 Leverkusen go into today’s match at TSG 1899 Hoffenheim stung from their first league defeat in 16 months. Leverkusen were beaten 3-2 at home by RB Leipzig before the international break, the first loss since May last year for the reigning league and cup champions. While any defeat, particularly against a likely title rival, would have disappointed coach Xabi Alonso, the way in which it happened would be most concerning. Just as they did in the Supercup against VfB Stuttgart and in the league opener to Borussia Moenchengladbach, Leverkusen scored first, but were pegged back. However, while Leverkusen rallied late to
If all goes well when the biggest marathon field ever gathered in Australia races 42km through the streets of Sydney on Sunday, World Marathon Majors (WMM) will soon add a seventh race to the elite series. The Sydney Marathon is to become the first race since Tokyo in 2013 to join long-established majors in New York, London, Boston, Berlin and Chicago if it passes the WMM assessment criteria for the second straight year. “We’re really excited for Sunday to arrive,” race director Wayne Larden told a news conference in Sydney yesterday. “We’re prepared, we’re ready. All of our plans look good on
The lights dimmed and the crowd hushed as Karoline Kristensen entered for her performance. However, this was no ordinary Dutch theater: The temperature was 80°C and the audience naked apart from a towel. Dressed in a swimsuit and to the tune of emotional music, the 21-year-old Kristensen started her routine, performed inside a large sauna, with a bed of hot rocks in the middle. For a week this month, a group of wellness practitioners, called “sauna masters,” are gathering at a picturesque health resort in the Netherlands to compete in this year’s Aufguss world sauna championships. The practice takes its name from a
When details from a scientific experiment that could have helped clear Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva landed at the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), the leader of the organization’s reaction was unequivocal: “We have to stop that urgently,” he wrote. No mention of the test ever became public and Valieva’s defense at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) went on without it. What effect the information could have had on Valieva’s case is unclear, but without it, the skater, then 15 years old, was eventually disqualified from the 2022 Winter Olympics after testing positive for a banned heart medication that would later