Overtime Goal Gives San Jose Sharks Life in Stanley Cup Finals

By Neal Nachman
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Updated: June 5, 2016

It took an extra 12 minutes 18 seconds of overtime and a nifty goal by the rookie Joonas Donskoi, but home ice turned out to be exactly what the San Jose Sharks needed Saturday night as they came from behind for a 3-2 victory over the Pittsburgh Penguins in Game 3 of the Stanley Cup finals.

The victory was the Sharks’ first in the series after they had dropped two games in Pittsburgh, and there had to be a collective sigh of relief when Donskoi skated from behind the net to fire the puck over the shoulder of Penguins goalie Matthew Murray. With the win, the Sharks avoided falling into a three-games-to-none hole in their first Cup finals appearance in their 24-year history.

They also picked up some much-needed confidence heading into Game 4 here on Monday.

“It’s big,” the Sharks’ Joe Thornton said of the win. “We haven’t had the lead too much in this series. To win this one, it’s a huge confidence booster, and now we just need to continue it in Game 4.”

Donskoi, 24, was drafted by the Florida Panthers but chose to develop his game in Finland instead. The Sharks signed him last summer as an unheralded free agent, and now he may have scored the most significant goal in franchise history, keeping San Jose’s hopes of a Stanley Cup alive.

“I think I’ve had a lot of scoring chances through the whole finals,” Donskoi said of the goal, his first of the series and his sixth of the postseason. “It was a good time to get it in.”

The Sharks entered the third period trailing by 2-1 after the Penguins had sandwiched goals by Ben Lovejoy and Patric Hornqvist around one by San Jose’s Justin Braun.

A high-sticking penalty against the Penguins’ Nick Bonino gave the Sharks a four-minute power play, and they needed every second of it before Joel Ward fired a 41-foot slap shot that found a small opening between Murray’s glove and left leg pad at 8:48.

The Sharks had hoped that the shift back to their home ice might provide the edge to help them counter the speed and opportunistic goals that had given the Penguins the first two games in the best-of-seven series. Although outplayed in those games, the Sharks had shown enough resilience to stay competitive — losing the first on a goal with 2:33 left in the game and the second in overtime.

The Penguins were well aware that a two-game lead was no guarantee of a series victory. In the 2009 Stanley Cup finals, Pittsburgh dropped the first two games on the road to the Detroit Red Wings, then rallied to win four of the next five to capture the Cup.

San Jose did seem to feed off the home crowd early on Saturday, but the Penguins took a 1-0 lead at 5:29 of the first period when giveaways by goalie Martin Jones and defenseman Roman Polak put the puck on Lovejoy’s stick, and his shot from the left point deflected off Polak and into the net.

San Jose tied the score a little more than four minutes later when Thornton found Braun unchecked just inside the blue line and his shot sailed past the screened Murray.

The Sharks dominated play throughout the second period, but Murray came up big with saves on tight shots by Brent Burns and Joel Ward, while Ward’s linemate Logan Couture rang a wrist shot off the far post.

The Penguins took a 2-1 lead 53 seconds before the second period ended when Thornton lost the puck to Olli Maatta, who fed it to Lovejoy for a shot that deflected off Patric Hornqvist’s stick and into the net.

But Jones said the thought of falling behind by three games to none had not rattled him.

“It’s easy to stay focused in those moments,” said Jones, who finished with 40 saves and made his biggest stop at 4:05 of overtime on a deflection by Bonino. “It was a must-win for us, and we got a better effort out of everyone tonight.”

Despite his team’s loss, Murray did not seemed discouraged.

”It’s one game,” he said. “It’s a seven-game series. It’s all about the next game. I think we outplayed them again today. We were the better team. I think we’re in a good spot here heading forward.”

The Sharks were missing the left wing on their top line as Tomas Hertl was sidelined with a lower-body injury he sustained in Game 2. Hertl finished that game, but he skated only briefly Friday. Melker Karlsson moved up from the third line to take Hertl’s place alongside Thornton and Joe Pavelski.