Erik Karlsson had a goal and three assists and James Reimer made 24 saves to lead the San Jose Sharks to a 5-2 victory over the visiting Minnesota Wild on Thursday night.
It was the third four-point game of the season for Karlsson, who leads all NHL defensemen with 46 points. Timo Meier had a goal and an assist and Noah Gregor, Oskar Lindblom and Kevin Labanc also scored goals for San Jose, which snapped a three-game losing streak with just its fourth home regulation win in 19 games this season.
Joel Eriksson Ek and Mats Zuccarello scored goals for Minnesota, which saw a season-best six-game winning streak snapped. Filip Gustavsson stopped 20 of 24 shots while having a personal six-game winning streak come to an end.
Karlsson needed just 44 seconds to give San Jose a 1-0 lead with his 13th goal of the season while extending his personal point streak to nine games when he slapped in a Jaycob Megna pass into an open net.
Minnesota tied it at the 2:20 mark of the opening period on a breakaway goal by Eriksson Ek, his 12th goal of the season.
San Jose regained the lead later in the period when Gregor backhanded a rebound of a Karlsson shot into an open net for his second goal of the season.
The Sharks then took advantage of a five-minute major on Wild forward Mason Shaw for kneeing Evgeny Svechnikov along the boards midway through the second period to extend their lead to 3-1 as Meier scored his 18th goal of the season on a slap shot through traffic from the top of the left circle.
Lindblom then made it 4-1 just as the penalty expired when he tapped in a backdoor rebound of a Karlsson shot for his second goal of the season.
The Wild cut it to 4-2 with just six seconds left in the period when Zuccarello fired a wrist shot from the left circle off a Kirill Kaprizov feed over Reimer’s shoulder for his 15th goal of the season.
Labanc sealed the win with a power-play empty-netter with 13.5 seconds remaining, his eighth goal of the season.
–Field Level Media