Sharks Come on Strong at End of Road Trip to Stop Losing Ways

NEWARK – Sharks defenseman Brent Burns isn't just outscoring all of his blue line counterparts in the NHL this season. In some cases, he's outscoring entire teams.
 
A legitimate Hart Trophy candidate, Burns entered Sunday's afternoon game in New Jersey with 22 goals. The Devils, as a team, had just 22 goals all season from their group of rear guards.
 
Burns added two more, though, while New Jersey got just one from forward P.A. Parenteau in a 4-1 Sharks win at Prudential Center. Both of Burns' goals came on wrist shots that glanced the iron on their way into the net, as the Wookiee played with the puck high in the zone and eventually found a shooting lane, turning a 1-0 deficit into a 2-1 Sharks lead that they would not relinquish.
 
"His shot is unbelievable," Logan Couture said. "The ability he has to get his shot through, there's nobody in the league that does it better."
 
Burns said: "Both [goals were] kind of the same. Good work down low, getting it up by the forwards, and then just traffic and shooting."
 
The Sharks conferred about getting more traffic in front of goalie Cory Schneider after the first period, when they registered 19 shots on goal but none that went in. Despite that inflated total, they didn't have many great scoring chances while going 0-for-4 on the power play, too.
 
Martin Jones saw just three shots in the first period, allowing Parenteau's score at 11:42.
 
"The talk is just you've got to come out and you've got to put that effort in again," Joe Pavelski said of the first intermission discussion. "We came out, we get a little bit more traffic – that was one of the things we wanted to do. Those shots, you could kind of tell [Schneider] couldn't really find them, and they got by him."
 
Jones said: "When pucks started going in, we were in front of the goalie. [Burns has] got a great shot, both are off the bar and in. But, you need to have bodies at the net to score from that distance."
 
Joe Thornton capped off a strong second period stretch with his second goal in three games, as the Sharks scored three times in 8:55 to take control of the game. 
 
"We got on a little run there," Thornton said. "We felt we were going pretty good. Our forecheck was working pretty good. It probably sealed the game right there."
 
Jones still had some work to do, though. He made some key stops on Taylor Hall and Stefan Noesen late in the second period to keep it a two-goal lead at the second intermission, and made seven saves on seven shots in the third as the Sharks locked it down.
 
His brief cold streak, starting with the third period in Buffalo last Tuesday and continuing in Boston when he was pulled after one period, appears to be over.
 
"I thought we managed the puck pretty well tonight," Jones said. "We didn't turn the puck over, we didn't give up odd man rushes. That was a big difference, especially in the third period against Buffalo and against Boston, we were giving up some odd man rushes, some looks that we don't normally give up. Tonight, we did a really good job."
 
San Jose snapped its winless streak at four games, capturing four of a possible eight points on its road trip.
 
"We feel like we've played a little better than our record so far on the trip, and we wanted the two points," Pete DeBoer said. "Back-to-back, not having success in the first – it would have been easy to get down, but we stuck with it."
 
Pavelski said: "To end the trip with a win – a good, complete performance – it makes for a nice flight home."