San Jose’s Patrick Marleau scored the overtime winner as the Sharks completed their first NHL playoff sweep in franchise history, beating the Vancouver Canucks 4-3 on Tuesday.
Joe Pavelski scored his second power-play goal of the game to tie it with 4 minutes, 27 seconds left in regulation, while Brent Burns also scored for the Sharks, who will now get a break before beginning the second round of the playoffs next week.
In the day’s other games, Ottawa beat Montreal in overtime and Chicago shut out Minnesota to both take 3-1 series leads, while the New York Islanders got the better of a 10-goal thriller to beat Pittsburgh and square their series 2-2.
Photo: AFP
Vancouver’s Mason Raymond, Alex Burrows and Alexander Edler scored for the Canucks, who were unable to hold onto a late third-period lead for the second time in the series.
Canucks goalie Cory Schneider made big stops early in overtime, but gave up the rebound that led to Marleau’s series-clinching power-play goal.
With Daniel Sedin sent off for boarding Tommy Wingels, the Sharks came through with their third power-play goal of the game to win it. Joe Thornton’s shot hit off Schneider and the puck was bouncing in the crease when Marleau just got his stick on it to score the winner, setting off a wild celebration at the Shark Tank.
The Canucks have lost 10 of their past 11 playoff games, raising major questions about the future of a franchise that made it to Game 7 of the Stanley Cup finals just two years ago.
Ottawa’s Kyle Turris scored in overtime, helping the Senators to a 3-2 win over the Montreal Canadiens, closing within one win of a series victory.
Turris’ shot from the sideboards sneaked past Montreal backup goalie Peter Budaj, who came on for the injured Carey Price at the start of overtime.
Cory Conacher had scored with 22.6 seconds to go in regulation to force overtime, while Mika Zibanejad had the Senators’ first goal.
P.K. Subban and Alex Galchenyuk scored 62 seconds apart in the second period for Montreal. Price made 30 saves, but was injured on Conacher’s tying goal late in the third period.
Chicago’s Patrick Sharp scored twice for Chicago as the Blackhawks ratcheted up their defense to beat Minnesota 3-0 and put the Wild on the brink of elimination.
Bryan Bickell also scored and Corey Crawford made 25 saves for the Blackhawks.
The Wild had another goalie get hurt when Josh Harding’s injury forced Darcy Kuemper into action after the first intermission. Sharp scored on Chicago’s first shot at the rookie 62 seconds into the second period.
Minnesota, the only one of the 16 NHL playoff teams without a power-play goal this post-season, went scoreless in six man-advantage situations and are none for 15 in the series.
New York’s John Tavares scored with 9:49 left to put the Islanders ahead for good in a frantic 6-4 win over the Pittsburgh Penguins.
Tavares slammed in his own rebound in front after Brad Boyes fed him following a turnover by Penguins star Evgeni Malkin.
It was the Islanders’ third one-goal advantage in the game and was enough to square a highly entertaining series that has featured 5-4 and 6-4 finishes at Nassau Coliseum.
Tavares was serenaded with cheers of “M-V-P” from the frenzied crowd that is beginning to believe that the heavy underdogs can upset the fancied Penguins this series.
Casey Cizikas shoved in a shot with 1:16 left to add some much-needed insurance.
Captain Mark Streit scored twice, Brian Strait and Kyle Okposo also had goals, while Evgeni Nabokov made 27 saves for the eighth-seeded Islanders.
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