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Sharks top Coyotes in shootout

Mar 25, 2012 - 6:51 AM San Jose, CA (Sports Network) - Michal Handzus scored in the first round of the shootout and Ryane Clowe sealed the victory with a goal in the second round as the San Jose Sharks downed the Phoenix Coyotes, 4-3, at HP Pavilion.

Patrick Marleau, Brent Burns and Daniel Winnik scored in regulation for the Sharks, who are in the ninth spot in the Western Conference with 86 points.

Antti Niemi made 25 saves in Sharks' second straight win.

Daymond Langkow, Derek Morris and Lauri Korpikoski lit the lamp for Phoenix, which is tied with Dallas for the top spot in the Pacific Division with 87 points. The Stars hold the tiebreaker. Mike Smith stopped 29 shots in defeat.

"It's unfortunate we couldn't get the two points," Coyotes head coach Dave Tippett said. "I thought our guys competed hard and we found a way to get a valuable point."

Handzus opened the shootout by racing down the center of the ice and wristing a shot past the stick side of Smith. After Mikkel Boedker had his shot kicked aside by Niemi, Clowe, who left the game in the second period after taking a puck to the head but returned for the third, moved towards the goaltender and deked to his right before switching to his forehand and wristing a shot under Smith's blocker.

Ray Whitney had a chance to keep the game going but Niemi stopped his backhanded attempt with his right pad to seal the win for the Sharks.

"We'll take the two [points]," Sharks head coach Todd McLellan said. "We obviously didn't play well enough to prevent them from getting one [point]."

Phoenix opened the scoring at the 6:31 mark of the first period when Gilbert Brule fed a pass from behind the net to a cutting Langkow in front and he one- timed it past Niemi.

But the Sharks answered with the next two goals to take the lead.

The first came at the 8:09 mark of the first period when Joe Thornton grabbed an errant pass inside the Phoenix zone before sliding the puck to Marleau, who finished from the left of the net with a shot through the goaltender's pads. Burns then gave San Jose a 2-1 lead with 2:32 remaining in the first with a wrister from the slot past Smith's glove side.

Morris, though, made it a 2-2 game entering the first intermission when he one-timed a loose puck into the top right corner with less than a second left in the opening frame.

Korpikoski put the Coyotes back on top 49 seconds into the second period with a redirection of a Whitney pass in front of the net, but Winnik tied the game at the 5:01 mark of the middle stanza with a slap shot from the top of the left circle that sailed through a crowd and past Smith.

Niemi then made nine saves in the third period while Smith stopped all eight shots he faced in the third to force overtime, where the Coyotes did not put a shot on goal.

Smith made four saves in the extra period.

Game Notes

Whitney's assist increased his point streak to seven games. He has two goals and eight assists in the streak...Phoenix went 0-for-1 on the power play...The Sharks failed to score in five chances with the man advantage.