AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez

By Ivan Makarov

SAN JOSE, CA — Entering a crucial stage in their regular season, with seven games long home stand, San Jose Sharks started it in a strong fashion, defeating the visiting Toronto Maple Leafs 3-1.

Most of the important action in that game happened in the first 11 minutes, when three of the four goals were scored.

Sharks scored the first goal when Tyler Kennedy was all alone in front of the Leafs net. He was setup with a great pass across the offensive zone by Brandon Dillon who faked the shot. Kennedy stopped the puck, paused, waiting for goaltender James Reimer to commit and then fired the puck on the empty net once Reimer went down. With the skillful move Kennedy scored his fourth goal of the season.

Sharks doubled their lead on the very next shift, and only seven seconds later. Having won the face-off, Sharks entered the zone and stormed the net. This time it was Patrick Marleau with the goal as he pushed the puck into the net with multiple Sharks crashing it at the same time after the shot by Matt Nieto. With the goal, Marleau broke 16-game long scoreless streak – a nice relief for the Sharks forward who’s been playing well during some stretches of that streak but haven’t been finding the net. The goal turned out to be a game winning in the end.

“It was probably one of our keys,” said Joe Thornton after the game. “We wanted to get off to a quick start and we did that. We scored 2 within the first ten minutes. That won us the game.”

Leafs cut the Sharks lead to just one on a goal by Roman Polak when he scored from a tough angle. He found the puck off a rebound from the boards behind Antti Niemi on a shot by Mike Santorelli.

Polak nearly scored again on the next shift when the puck bounced off to him during a scramble in front of Sharks’ net with Niemi out and few Sharks players laying on the ice to protect the goal. He fired a powerful slap shot, but it was blocked on its way to the net.

From then on, it was time for goaltenders to shine, as both teams played an open game and created multiple scoring chances. San Jose outshot Toronto in the end 41-25, but the chances were going both ways.

With the game winding down, Leafs pulled Reimer for an extra skater, but Sharks did not let them come back, and instead scored an empty net goal the other way when James Shepperd stole the puck, passed it to The McGinn who found Tommy Wingels with another pass and an empty net in front of him.

“I thought they had a tremendous game tonight,” said Sharks head coach Todd McLellan.

“Everyone found a way to contribute. Your energy level stays up a lot more when you’re able to get that kind of contribution.”

Sharks return to action on Saturday when they face division opponent Calgary Flames.