• Preview
• Recap
• Bleachers

Thornton tallies twice as Sharks claim sixth straight win

Mar 4, 2008 - 7:34 AM By Ryan Leong PA SportsTicker Contributing Writer

SAN JOSE, California (Ticker) -- The San Jose Sharks returned from a season-long eight-game road trip and wasted no time picking up a relatively rare home win.

Joe Thornton scored a pair of goals to lead the Sharks to a 6-4 victory over the Montreal Canadiens on Monday night.

Patrick Marleau also scored for the Sharks, who have won six straight but improved to just 15-13-5 at home. San Jose is 22-8-3 record on the road.

"Usually when you come off the road like we have for seventeen days there's a little bit of a letdown but (Marleau) started us off with a great individual effort and it rolled off from that," Thornton said.

"Just an excellent game, it went back and forth all night but obviously we pulled out the two points. They're the best in the East right now and hopefully we'll be the best in the West come shortly."

Tomas Plekanec scored two goals and defenseman Ryan O'Byrne notched his first career NHL tally for the Canadiens.

"It was pretty nice to get the first one out of the way," O'Byrne said. "I didn't score a goal (in the minors) in Hamilton until the playoffs but it would've been nice to get the win too but that's how it goes. It was kind of back and forth and a few mistakes out there. Not our cleanest play, we'll simplify for Thursday in Phoenix."

Goaltender Carey Price lost for the first time in four games since taking over for Cristobal Huet, who was traded to the Washington Capitals last week.

"We gave up six goals so I think there's a few he'd like to have back but that's where we're at," Montreal coach Guy Carbonneau said. "We're playing well but we still have a young team that's learning to play in those occasions."

After an exciting opening frame, the Sharks took advantage of a 5-on-3 power play to forge a brief one-goal lead in the second period.

Thornton nearly scored off the faceoff but Price made the save. However, with the puck still resting at the goal line, the Sharks crashed the net, gained possession and sent the puck around the boards and back to Thornton, who fired a one-timer through Price's pads to give San Jose a 3-2 lead.

"When you get a couple of quick goals, there's a buzz in the building and then our team picked up on it," Sharks coach Ron Wilson said.

"Both teams had an incredible amount of energy which might have led to some of the goals because it was kind of sloppy out there. There were a lot of mental mistakes by both teams that allowed goals to be scored but people were opportunistic and it made for a fun game."

The Sharks couldn't hold down Montreal's potent offense for long and Plekanec evened the score nearly 10 minutes later.

Plekanec received a centering feed at the slot and fired a snap shot past Evgeni Nabokov, tying the score at 3-3 with 5:05 left in the second period.

The offense did not stop there as Sharks enforcer Jody Shelley got a rare goal simply trying to dump the puck down the ice.

The puck deflected off the stick of Montreal defenseman Mike Komisarek and hit the top of the net just under the crossbar, clearly crossing the goal line to put the Sharks up, 4-3, at 16:36 of the second period.

"I've been working on that shot for awhile, so it finally worked out," joked Shelley, who scored his first goal since February 25, 2007, a span of 61 games. "I'll just throw it at the net and I'll take it."

Jonathan Cheechoo extended the Sharks' lead to 5-3 in the third period, skating right past former teammate Josh Gorges and backhanding a shot over Price for his 20th goal. It was the Moose Factory, Ontario native's 15th goal in his last 22 games.

"They go to the net hard, they do a good job of that and got rewarded for it, you've got to give them credit, they work hard," Price said. "They did go to the net and I'm sure they were told to do that. That's how you score goals in this league."

But again the Canadiens narrowed the deficit when Mark Streit came down the right wing and fired a shot near the crease. Maxim Lapierre got the rebound and backhanded it behind Nabokov to cut the lead to 5-4.

However, defenseman Brian Campbell sealed the victory on the power play at 18:21 of the third period after Andrei Markov was whistled for tripping. The goal was Campbell's sixth of the season and first since February 21.

"Obviously its nice to score but the win is really nice," Campbell said. "We've got to keep rolling here. We've got some games in hand and we've really got to take care of those."