By DANIEL DULLUM
Sports Radio Service
Thursday, January 21, 2016

photo credit: zimbio.com  San Jose’s Tommy Wingels who scored two goals against Arizona Thursday night

GLENDALE, Arizona – The shots on goal for each team reflect a much closer game between San Jose and Arizona than the 3-1 verdict enjoyed by the visiting Sharks Thursday.

San Jose outshot the Coyotes 24-23, but dominated play most of the evening in a building that usually gives them problems.

“We’ve been a good road team all year, and I was comfortable that we would show up here and play a good game,” Sharks Coach Peter DeBoer said. “It’s nice when you win on the road, because this isn’t an easy place to play and the Coyotes have a very good team.”

The win snapped a tie for second place in the NHL Pacific Division between San Jose (24-18-3, 51 points) and Coyotes (22-19-5, 49 points) in the first meeting this season between the two clubs. The Sharks have won six of their last seven games, while Arizona is on a four-game losing skid and tumbled to fourth place in the Pacific.

“We needed these two points,” DeBoer said. “You look around the league and everybody seems to be winning games, so it’s important to hold serve, so to speak.”

For most of the first two periods, the Coyotes had trouble moving the puck out of their own zone, and San Jose capitalized with two goals by Tommy Wingels and Chris Tierney in the first period.

“I think we were trying to be above them all night, and we were pretty tight on them,” Tierney, recalled from AHL San Jose on Jan. 8, said. “We tried to eliminate their speed, go for the puck rink-wide, and that worked for us.”

“It was good to come in on the road and get two goals early,” Wingels said. “When you go up by two goals, it’s tough to come back from that, so we were happy with that.”

Wingels, recalled from AHL San Jose on Jan. 8, opened the scoring at 6:23 of the first period with his fourth goal. While he was spun around in the high slot, Wingels, with his back to the net, gloved the puck and sent a blind, low shot past Coyotes goaltender Louis Domingue off a deflected pass from Justin Braun.

“I just tried to get a puck on the net as quickly as I could,” Wingels said. “Sometimes, they’re going to be really pretty, sometimes not. Sometimes, you get lucky. I couldn’t tell if it was tipped, or if there was a screen, but we’ll take those goals any way we can.”

A scrum in front of the Coyotes’ net provided San Jose with its second goal. Tierney found a low opening on Doningue’s glove side on a shot deflected off Coyotes defenders Boyd Gordon and Nicklas Grossman. San Jose’s Melker Karlsson was knocked off balance in the crease, but the puck crossed the goal line before the net was bumped off it moorings. Braun had the primary assist at 9:56 of the first period.

“After I came back up, I just wanted to re-start, have a fresh mindset, come in to work every day,” Tierney said. “I got a lot of ice time down there (in the AHL), and hopefully I can score a lot more now.”

Though games between San Jose and Arizona tend to be physical affairs, the first penalty of the game didn’t come until the Sharks’ Joe Ward was whistled for high sticking at 1:47 of the third period. The Coyotes, scoreless in their last 11 power-play opportunities, failed to capitalize.

Arizona battled back and cut the Sharks’ lead to 2-1 at 11:24 of the third period when Brad Richardson converted his own rebound off his initial shot on a feed from Shane Doan. Richardson’s backhander in the slot beat San Jose goaltender Martin Jones to the stick side.

After Domingue was pulled in favor of a sixth attacker, Patrick Marleau popped in an empty netter with :52 remaining in the game for his 15th goal of the season, accounting for the final margin.

“It was a good group effort tonight,” Wingels said. “We got contributions from all of the lines, and we can feel good about ourselves.”

Even with a Pacific Division rival in town, attendance at Gila River Arena was 12,251 – many of them donning Sharks teal attire, including the San Jose dads making their annual road trip with their sons,

Doan was honored before the game with a brief ceremony recognizing his franchise-leading 380 career goals. He’s the last remaining Coyote who played with the team in Winnipeg before the original Jets moved to the Valley in 1996.