NHL - San Jose Sharks @ Winnipeg Jets 4-1 - Tuesday, January 12, 2016

The San Jose Sharks continued their success on the road by defeating the Winnipeg Jets 4-1 at MTS Centre. The Sharks won their third in a row and moved into third place in the Pacific Division. They have 15 road victories, one behind the Washington Capitals for the NHL lead. Nos. 14 and 15 came on consecutive nights; San Jose won 5-4 at the Calgary Flames on Monday.
The Jets have lost the first two games of a stretch in which they play nine of 10 games at home. They remained last in the Central Division.
Chris Tierney's first career shorthanded goal gave the Sharks a first-period lead, and Joe Thornton, Joe Pavelski and Joel Ward each scored a goal. Defenseman Brett Burns extended his point streak to a career-high eight games (six goals, six assists) with an assist on Pavelski's goal. Rookie Nikolaj Ehlers scored for Winnipeg.

San Jose backup goaltender Alex Stalock started for the first time since Dec. 18, 2015, and made 21 saves. Jets rookie Connor Hellebuyck, starting for the 13th time in 15 games, finished with 23 saves.
The Jets got their first power play when San Jose's Tommy Wingels was penalized for hooking at 14:30 of the first period. But while his team was a man down, Tierney stripped Dustin Byfuglien of the puck in the neutral zone before moving across the blue line and snapping a rising shot from the slot past Hellebuyck's glove at 15:18. Tierney's fourth goal ended his 12-game goalless streak dating to Dec. 8, 2015. But 23 seconds later and with Winnipeg still on the same power play, the Jets tied the game when Ehlers finished Drew Stafford's rush into the San Jose zone for his seventh goal.
San Jose went ahead to stay with 46.1 seconds left in the period. Tomas Hertl drove to the net, but Hellebuyck stopped his attempt; however, Thornton trailed the play and shoved in his ninth goal for a 2-1 lead. Thornton has points in 11 of his past 12 games (five goals, 11 assists).
The Jets thought they had tied the game at 14:12 of the third period, 67 seconds after Tyler Myers took a cross-checking major and a game misconduct. Wheeler took the puck away from Stalock and tucked it into the net on a wraparound. However, the officials ruled that Wheeler had tripped Stalock during the play, waved off the goal and penalized him.

Pavelski scored his 22nd goal during the subsequent 5-on-3, firing a one-timer from the left circle past Hellebuyck with 4:01 remaining. Ward's empty-net goal with 53.6 seconds remaining completed the scoring. The Jets have scored 22 goals in their past 11 games. The Sharks are 3-1-0 since the home loss to Winnipeg 10 days ago.
The Sharks begin a three-game homestand Thursday against the Edmonton Oilers. Their six home wins (6-12-0) are the fewest in the League. DeBoer hopes the three-game winning streak will provide a boost as the Sharks move into the second half of their season. The Jets continue their three-game homestand Thursday against the Nashville Predators, who are four points ahead of them. The Sharks have improved to 4-3-1 in the second half of back-to-backs. Andrew Ladd has two goals in his past 16 games.

Sharks Bites

Peter DeBoer: "I liked our game. I thought we did what they did to in San Jose us [a 4-1 Winnipeg win Jan. 2]. We played a heavy game. We played hard. We did a lot of good things for a back-to-back on the road."
"I've said all along that I'm optimistic about our group. I like where we're going. We're heading in the right direction. We're not where we want to be yet, but we're heading there."
Joe Thornton: "We love when [Stalock] is in net. He has a tough job. He comes in every back-to-back, [the team] coming in late the night before. It's a tough job he has, but he played solidly for us."
Joe Pavelski: "Since then, we've just re-established the work ethic. You've got to compete. You're not going to win every battle, but you've got to win more than you lose. We've gotten that out of everybody. As we've gotten that more, guys have earned a little bit of success and been rewarded, and it has been good to see."
"[At 42 games] we're halfway there. We're still right on that line. We want to play better in certain areas. It's just a nightly basis, nightly reminders that we've got to compete. If we do that and play smart games, we're going to be in a lot of games, so there [will be] a lot of chances to win."
Alex Stalock: "It's funny [the disparity between the Sharks' home and road records]. It's two different records almost. We've got to figure out the [record] at home. But we like the way we've been playing the past four games. We really do. But we've got to figure out what's going on at home and change that up."

Jets Quotes

Paul Maurice: "We weren't as good as we needed to be to beat that team. They were faster than we were from the start all the way through the game. Like I've said, the frustration level builds in the course of a game because I swear we think we're waiting for something to get easy. And it's just never, ever getting easy. We've got to get faster. Got to get quicker. Got to get sharper. It's not getting easier."
Blake Wheeler: "We didn't play very well. We didn't have very many good players."
Andrew Ladd: "I think that as a group we can build some more. We have to find a way to build up more energy inside this room coming from everybody, so I think it's something we can get better in."