By Pearl Allison Lo

~ LOS ANGELES– San Jose took it to Los Angeles Wednesday in the teams’ regular season opener, in a reversal of the teams’ regular season finale, 5-1.

Newly crowned Captain Joe Pavelski scored the game winner, a power play goal, had two assists and seven shots, to lead the game with three points in his debut. Pavelski at one point had another goal, but it was credited later to Joonas Donskoi.

The Sharks scored goals in each period, including two multiple goal periods. San Jose scored two power play goals and killed all of the Kings’ six power plays, including a 5-on-3.

Los Angeles won the regular season finale, 4-1.

San Jose has now won six straight regular season openers.

As part of the rivalry, the game featured multiple penalties, including a match penalty to Los Angeles’ Milan Lucic, a bloody Logan Couture (Sharks) after a hit to the ice from Dustin Brown, three fights and scrums.

The Kings started off strong to start the game, but ended up behind by the end of the first period and in the box.

Nick Shore scored the game’s first goal in the first minute, at 1:49, aided by Brown and Drew Doughty. After that, Martin Jones, who debuted in goal against his former team, never let another puck get past him. Jones said, “It’s obviously not the way you want to start a game, but I thought we showed a lot of character as a group by not letting that spiral…I thought we did a great job coming back from that. Coach Peter DeBoer added, “I loved our composure as a team. We feed off him,” referring to Jones.

Joe Thornton then almost singlehandedly went from one end of the ice to the other, as he evened the game at 9:43. Paul Martin got his first assist

Los Angeles had the game’s first power play, but it was cut short when Marian Gaborik was booked for tripping. Neither team scored on those opportunities.

However, six seconds after Shore was booked for closing his hand on the puck at 15:46, Pavelski scored his first goal, to put the Sharks up 2-1. Patrick Marleau crossed the puck to Brent Burns and Pavelski tapped Burns’ shot from beyond the left faceoff circle in, on its way to the net.

In the second period, Burns made it 3-1 on his second similar shot, with the puck going around goalie Jonathan Quick into the net. Burns had just shot beforehand and missed. Pavelski and Thornton helped with the play.

Just over two minutes later, after a lot of passing, San Jose scored their second power play goal behind Tomas Hertl. Similar to the last man advantage goal, Hertl was the man up front who put in a farther away shot, this one Marc-Edouard Vlasic’s, as the puck bounced before going through Quick. Tommy Wingels had the other assist.

The Sharks kept on scoring in the third. After Quick blocked several shots, Donskoi got his first career goal, aided by Pavelski and Vlasic, to make it 5-1 at 3:31.

Game notes: San Jose’s Justin Braun had five blocked shots. The Sharks will hold their home opener Saturday as they take on another rival, the Anaheim Ducks, at 7:30pm.