The San Jose Sharks needed three months — or 42 games — to get to their 10th win of the season last year.
Less than eight weeks into this season, the Sharks reached that mark Tuesday with arguably their most impressive victory of the year so far.
William Eklund scored a power-play goal 39 seconds into overtime as the Sharks continued their recent string of strong play with a 2-1 road victory over the Capitals, who came into the game as the highest-scoring team in the NHL.
With Capitals forward Tom Wilson serving a double-minor for high-sticking Macklin Celebrini and the Sharks enjoying a 4-on-3 man advantage, Eklund took a pass from Mikael Granlund and one-timed a shot past Capitals goalie Logan Thompson for his fifth goal of the season.
“We just were trying to keep calm there. We didn’t want to be too excited to go into overtime on the 4-on-3,” Eklund said on NBC Sports California after the game, “so we just tried to be calm, and in it went.”
Celebrini had the secondary assist on Eklund’s goal to stretch his point streak to five games, as the Sharks (10-13-5) improved to 4-1-0 since their 4-2 loss to the Buffalo Sabres on Nov. 23.
Tyler Toffoli also scored, and Mackenzie Blackwood finished with 27 saves as the Sharks won their second straight game away from home to begin a six-game road trip that continues Thursday against the Tampa Bay Lightning.
The Sharks were 9-17-3 last season on Dec. 12, 2023, before they began a 12-game losing streak that didn’t end until Jan. 11. That’s when they beat the Montreal Canadiens 3-2 to finally earn their 10th win. They were 10-29-3 at that point.
This season is proving to be much different.
“I think we’re seeing that when we play connected, we’re a really good hockey team, and we can do some things to put teams on their heels,” Sharks coach Ryan Warsofsky said. “We can make plays, create offense, and change the momentum of games and get on teams.”
The Sharks had a 1-0 lead after the first period.
After a Sharks line change, Toffoli took control of the puck in the neutral zone, carried it into the Capitals end, and beat Thompson with a wrist shot high blocker side for his 10th goal of the season.
The goal snapped a seven-game goal drought for Toffoli, whose last goal came in a Nov. 18 game against the Detroit Red Wings.
The Sharks were allowed to take the lead after a solid first period from Blackwood, who had 16 saves in the opening 20 minutes.
The Capitals tied the game at the 13:02 mark of the second period. After Nic Dowd won a faceoff in the Sharks’ zone, he peeled off and found a quiet spot in the slot area. The Sharks lost sight of Dowd, who one-timed a shot past Blackwood for his seventh goal of the season.
Blackwood was coming off a solid 36-save performance on Saturday when the Sharks beat the Kraken 4-2 for their third win in four games. In his last 11 games before Tuesday, going back to Oct. 28, Blackwood was 5-5-1 with a .907 save percentage.
The Capitals came into Tuesday as the NHL’s highest-scoring team, with an average of 4.21 goals per game. They had also scored a league-leading 69 goals during 5-on-5 play this season.
The Sharks scored 22 goals in their last four games before playing the Capitals, and were averaging 2.89 goals per game, which is the 19th most in the NHL.
SPECIAL GAME: Tuesday’s game was extra meaningful for Warsofsky, who was coaching against Washington’s bench boss Spencer Carbery as an NHL head coach for the first time. Warsofsky’s first coaching job in professional hockey came in 2013 when he worked on Carbery’s staff with the ECHL’s South Carolina Stingrays. The two coached together for three years.
ROSTER CHANGE: The Sharks made one lineup change for Tuesday’s game as veteran forward Carl Grundstrom dressed in place of rookie Ethan Cardwell, who was a healthy scratch. Grundstrom went five games without a point before he was a healthy scratch for both games of the Sharks’ home-and-home series with the Kraken last week.
Cardwell, who was recalled from Barracuda last week after Barclay Goodrow was placed on injured reserve, played in both games against the Kraken and scored his first NHL goal in Friday’s 8-5 Sharks win at SAP Center.
Grundstrom skated on the Sharks’ fourth line with Nico Sturm and Ty Dellandrea.
VLASIC NEARS RETURN: Warsofsky reiterated Tuesday that Sharks defenseman Marc-Edouard Vlasic is nearing a return and is on track to be available to play again by the end of the team’s road trip next week. Vlasic, who missed all of training camp and every game so far this season with an upper-body injury, has been skating regularly with the Sharks over the last several days.
Vlasic is in his 19th NHL season and has played in 1,296 career NHL games, all with the Sharks.
