By Ivan Makarov

San Jose Sharks have not been getting much offense lately from it’s top lines. After helping them win games all throughout the season, Joe Thornton and Patrick Marleau’s lines have been held mostly off the scoresheet in the past few games. They went scoreless again against Dallas Stars on Wednesday night at the SAP Center, but the Sharks went on to win 2-1 in overtime anyway due to the great game by Sharks third line, and yet another strong performance by Sharks backup goaltender Alex Stalock.

Marty Havlat and Tommy Wingels each scored a goal, while Alex Stalock made 20 saves to record his eighth win of this season.

“It was time for some other players to step up and score,” said pleased Sharks head coach Todd McLellan after the game. “To see Marty and Tommy both do it in one game is a good thing for our team.”

Havlat took part in both goals, which is good to see from someone who recorded no points in the last five games since he came back from a month long recovery from injury, and was largely invisible all season long.

“It feels nice to win the game,” said Havlat. “I don’t really care who scored the goal. But it’s nice to score the goal.”

Havlat scored a goal towards the end of the second period, as he redirected a puck from a pass made by Scott Hannan. Later on he assisted Wingels on the game winning overtime goal as Wingels skated towards the net.

“I came over the line and saw someone being late and was trying to make a play,” said Wingels. “It bounced on me, but we got the puck back. Hannan got open there, and knew that Marty was there. Marty made a good play when he slotted [the puck] across the crease to me and I shot it and it went in.”

Scott Hannan was also credited with the secondary assist on the first goal, and like Havlat, he ended the night with two points.

Overall, it was a pretty sloppy game, with not a lot of scoring chances, and both teams struggling to possess the puck and creating very little in terms of chances on their own power plays. Nonetheless, McLellan saw improvement in team’s play after a bad game on Monday against the Flyers.

“The team improved, pretty evidently,” he said commenting on the result. “You look at the game tonight and compare it to the Philadelphia game. It doesn’t mean that we were cleaner or faster or more polished. It’s just that the commitment level went up. We still got to improve.”

Sharks play one more time before the Winter Olympics break in the schedule when they host Columbus Blue Jackets at home on Friday.