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Oilers send Sharks to sixth straight loss

Jan 14, 2011 - 8:09 AM San Jose, CA (Sports Network) - Taylor Hall scored a pair of goals and dished out an assist, as the Edmonton Oilers handled the struggling San Jose Sharks, 5-2, at HP Pavilion.

Dustin Penner, Andrew Cogliano and Linus Omark also lit the lamp for the Oilers, who snapped a five-game road skid. Devan Dubnyk made 41 saves.

Joe Thornton and Ryane Clowe scored for the Sharks, who were trying for their first ever season-series sweep of Edmonton.

Antero Niittymaki stopped 24-of-29 shots for San Jose, which has lost six in a row for the first time since dropping the same amount of games from March 13-21 last season.

"Right now I'm not doing a very good job," Sharks head coach Todd McLellan said. "I have to find better buttons to push...I have to do a better job."

The Sharks got forward Joe Pavelski back after he missed the last eight contests with a lower-body injury. But on the other end of the spectrum, rookie forward Logan Couture sat out with a knee injury.

Cogliano opened the scoring at the 15:34 mark of the first period. Liam Reddox controlled the puck at the top of the right circle and passed down low to Cogliano, who beat Niittymaki with a wrister.

Penner's slapper just 3:50 into the middle stanza made it a 2-0 game.

Edmonton took a 3-0 lead on Hall's goal at the 15:36 mark. Hall found himself on a breakaway after a San Jose defender fell on his back. His wrister snuck through Niittymaki, and the puck trickled across the goal line. It was not called a goal at first, but the refs overturned the call upon further review.

Thornton put the Sharks on the board at the 5:55 mark of the third. Dany Heatley made a nice cross-ice pass to Thornton, whose wrister from the left circle beat Dubnyk.

The Oilers went back up by three when Omark jammed home a rebound at the 9:14 mark.

Clowe's power-play goal with 48.7 seconds remaining made it 4-2, but Hall notched an empty-net goal with 2.5 ticks to go.

"We came out real hungry tonight and made sure we had ourselves a win," Oilers head coach Tom Renney said.

Game Notes

San Jose had outscored Edmonton, 12-5, in winning all three previous meetings this season...The Sharks have lost six in a row at home...Edmonton was without Jim Vandermeer (ankle) and Gilbert Brule (abdomen)...San Jose went 2-for-5 on the power play, while Edmonton went 0-for-4 on the man advantage.