By DANIEL DULLUM
Sports Radio Service
Tuesday, January 13, 2015

GLENDALE, Arizona – Defenseman Brenden Dillon was getting all kinds of advice on how to handle his postgame interview from his San Jose teammates following the Sharks’ 3-2 victory Tuesday at Gila River Arena.

“Take your shirt off!”

“Do some pushups!”

Dillon chose instead to remain seated in front of his locker to describe his first goal of the season; a game-winning shot that came five minutes into the third period, snapping a 2-2 deadlock.

From near the left point, Dillon spun around and sent a low shot through the 5-hole of Coyotes’ goaltender Devan Dubnyk.

“I really wanted to contribute, and to get the game-winner really made me happy,” Dillon said. “I’ve been working on shooting and I’ve had a couple of pucks like that go against us this season. So to get one to go in for us and for me personally, and to get the win more importantly, I’m pretty excited.

“Dubnyk’s been good for (Arizona) this year, so we tried to put more pucks on the net, battle a little more near the crease. (The Coyotes) are a good faceoff team and a good shot blocking team. We knew we weren’t going to get many looks, and when we did, we had to make the most of them.”

The Sharks improved to 51 points (23-16-5) on the season, vaulting into second place in the NHL Pacific Division. Arizona, meanwhile, continues to struggle at 36 points (16-22-4) while an announced crowd of 10,631 watched the divisional matchup.

“It was a pretty evenly played game,” Sharks Coach Todd McLellan said. “We talked about that between the second and third periods and told them to elevate their play just a little bit. It comes down to which team gets the breaks and we’ll take the bounces that came our way.

“Any win is a good win, any way you can at this point. Points you can put in the bank is essential at this time of the year. It gets to the point where when you keep winning, the other teams will run out of time. But we have to do our work right now to make sure we’re taking care of our own games.”

The Coyotes opened the scoring at 14:19 of the first period when Mikkel Boedker took a feed from Oliver Ekman-Larsson and fired a low shot through traffic and past a screened Antti Niemi, putting Arizona up 1-0. The goal was Boedker’s team-leading 13th of the season.

San Jose tied the game on a power play goal by Joe Pavelski, his 22nd of the season, just 30 seconds into the second period. Pavelski redirected Joe Thornton’s shot from the right point while Arizona’s Shane Doan was serving a slashing penalty that carried over from the first period.

During the first intermission, McLellan said he told his team it needed to play better “around our net, not so much around their net.”

“It wasn’t a big motivating speech or anything like that, we just stayed steady on the rudder and we knew we were starting the second period on the power play. So we wanted to get some momentum from that and it turned out that way.”

Nearly one minute later, Tomas Hertl’s eighth goal of the season gave the Sharks their first lead of the night at 2-1. But Doan converted a rebound at 11:00 of the second, tucking the puck under Niemi’s right leg pad, tying the game at 2-2.

“I thought Tomas had a nice game in the middle,” McLellan said. “He was around the puck more, he skated more, and maybe we’ll continue to look at him there.

“Our fourth line gave us some valuable minutes, and all four lines participated in the win. That’s the way you like to do it.”

The Sharks nearly had a go-ahead goal at 19:23 of the second period, but replay showed that the net was knocked off of its moorings prior to the shot.

Arizona pulled Dubnyk in favor of a sixth attacker with one minute to play in the third period, but never mounted much of an offensive threat. Sharks goaltender Antti Niemi stopped 29 of 31 shots.

Logan Couture assisted on the first and third San Jose goals.

Dubnyk, who got the start in place of the struggling Mike Smith, stopped 25 of 28 shots on goal for Arizona.

Just as excited as the Sharks players were about the win were their fathers, who were on the annual fathers’ trip.

“They’re a pretty happy group right now, and it’s fun to have them around. It’s really a good reward for them to see their sons win and I know they’ll enjoy the flight back,” McLellan said. “They think they’re staying for the rest of the season, but I don’t think any of us would survive that!”