Canucks Elias Pettersson Game Winning Shot In OT For 6-5 Vancouver Win
Pettersson scores in OT, Canucks rally past Sharks
Wins it with 35 seconds remaining, Joshua gets two goals for Vancouver
by Chelena Goldman / NHL.com Independent Correspondent
SAN JOSE — Elias Pettersson scored with 35 seconds remaining in overtime to give the Vancouver Canucks a 6-5 win against the San Jose Sharks at SAP Center on Wednesday.
Pettersson scored from the left face-off circle on a 2-on-1 off a pass from Andrei Kuzmenko right after Canucks goalie Spencer Martin made consecutive saves on Timo Meier and Tomas Hertl.
“Martin made two big stops, and then on the breakaway [Kuzmenko] gave me a good pass, and I just tried to go low blocker,” Pettersson said.
Kuzmenko tied it 5-5 at 16:07 of the third period with a power-play goal when he redirected a Pettersson slap shot at the left post.
“I think a lot of times a team like San Jose, once they get the lead, they’re starting to panic a little bit because they haven’t had a lot of wins,” Vancouver coach Bruce Boudreau said.
Dakota Joshua scored twice, Bo Horvat and Oliver Ekman-Larsson each had two assists, and Martin made 34 saves for the Canucks (12-12-3), who have won six of eight.
“Obviously, the way we started [the season], that’s in the past,” Pettersson said. “We’ve just got to learn from it … and, hopefully, we can just keep it going and keep on building.”
Logan Couture had a goal and an assist, and Hertl had two assists for the Sharks (8-16-5), who have lost seven of eight (1-5-2).
“I liked a lot about our game,” San Jose coach David Quinn said. “I know we lost, but I liked our resiliency. I like that we got better and better as the game went on. We were down 3-1 and we battled back.”
Kaapo Kahkonen allowed four goals on 19 shots through two periods before being replaced by Eetu Makiniemi, who made six saves in his NHL debut after being recalled from San Jose of the American Hockey League on Tuesday.
“I thought he did a good job,” Sharks forward Kevin Labanc said of Makiniemi. “It’s not easy coming in when you’re sitting on the bench, but he did a good job.”
Nick Bonino gave San Jose a 1-0 lead 18 seconds into the first period, deflecting a point shot by Matt Benning. It was Bonino’s second straight game with a goal after not scoring in the first 24 games of the season.
Joshua tied it 1-1 at 4:15 on a rebound, then made it 2-1 at 19:35 on a power play. It was his first multigoal game in the NHL.
“Just a confidence builder,” Joshua said. “It goes a long way in showing that I can be effective at this level and just take a performance like that and try to build off of it.”
Nils Hoglander extended Vancouver’s lead to 3-1 at 1:34 of the second period on a shot from the right circle after stealing the puck from Labanc.
Meier cut it to 3-2 at 7:27 on a power play.
It appeared Joshua had scored his first NHL hat trick to make it 4-2 at 8:02, but the Sharks successfully challenged the play for goaltender interference.
Couture tied it 3-3 at 10:53 on a breakaway, San Jose’s first short-handed goal of the season.
Ilya Mikheyev gave the Canucks a 4-3 lead at 19:28 on a breakaway after taking a stretch pass from Tyler Myers.
Jonah Gadjovich tied it 4-4 at 2:45 of the third period with a shot from the left circle after stealing the puck from Ekman-Larsson before Labanc gave San Jose a 5-4 lead at 11:28 with a slap shot from the top of the right circle.
“It’s tough,” Gadjovich said. “Obviously at the end of the day, those extra points mean a lot. At the end of the year, they add up. We fought back and that [means] a lot, that shows our character. But we’ve got to find a way to come up with that extra point.”
NOTES: Pettersson is the second player in Canucks history to score an overtime goal in consecutive games (Mike Santorelli, Oct. 6 and 8, 2013). … Vancouver won its seventh straight against San Jose, its longest active winning streak against one opponent. … Sharks forward Nico Sturm had one shot and two hits in 17:50 of ice time after missing eight games with an upper-body injury. … Forward CJ Suess was minus-1 with one hit in 5:50 in his Sharks debut after being recalled from San Jose on Tuesday. He signed a one-year contract July 13. … Couture has seven points (three goals, four assists) in his past six games.
