San Jose center Macklin Celebrini celebrates his third period goal against the Vancouver Canucks at Rogers Centre in Vancouver on Sat Dec 27, 2025 (Canadian Press via AP photo)
By Mary Walsh
The San Jose Sharks defeated the Vancouver Canucks 6-3 on Saturday. Ryan Reaves, John Klingberg, William Eklund, Igor Chernyshov, Macklin Celebrini and Collin Graf scored for San Jose. Yaroslav Askarov made 23 saves for the win. Linus Karlsson, Drew O’Connor and Marco Rossi scored for the Canucks. Thatcher Demko made 31 saves in the loss.
The win ended a three game losing streak for the Sharks, and also a many-year losing streak in Vancouver. The Sharks had not won a game there since 2019. After the game, Sharks Head Coach Ryan Warsofsky said: “When we’re skating, playing with structure, we’re competing, we’re a hard team to play against and we’ve seen that this year. We’ve just got to do it consistently.”
Ryan Reaves scored the first goal of the game at 6:11. A scramble in front of the net left the puck sitting in the blue paint between the goaltender and the goal line. Reaves pushed through the crowd and tapped it over the line. Assists went to Barclay Goodrow and Vincent Iorio.
John Klingberg made it 2-0 at 7:55. After catching the puck off of an offensive zone faceoff, Klingberg skated to the middle of the blue line for a wrist shot that went right in. Macklin Celebrini got an assist on the goal.
Linus Karlsson trimmed the Sharks lead to 2-1 with a power play goal at 10:04. Karlsson’s wrist shot came from in close, off a pass from Connor Garland. An assist also went to Filip Hronek.
The Sharks outshot the Canucks 11-8 in the first period. Each team took one penalty.
William Eklund got credit for the only second period goal. Eklund sent the puck into the net traffic and it went off of a Canucks defender and in.
The Sharks outshot the Canucks 11-6 in the second period and, again, each team took one penalty.
Just 36 seconds into the third, Marco Rossi made it 3-2. The rebound from a Filip Hronek shot went up in the air and right to Rossi. Assists went to Hronek and Garland.
Igor Chernyshov scored on the power play to make it 4-2 at 4:47. An Adam Gaudette pass found Chernyshov in front of the net for a wrist shot. An assist also went to Dmitry Orlov as well.
Drew O’Connor scored a short-handed goal at 10:43 with a snap shot.
Macklin Celebrini scored to make it 6-3. Chernyshov passed the puck up from near the goal line as Celebrini tapped his stick to call for the puck. Celebrini shot as soon as he go the puck, wasting no time. Assists went to Chernyshov and Eklund.
Collin Graf scored into an empty net at 18:55. Assists went to Alexander Wennberg and Mario Ferrraro.
San Jose held a small lead in shots in the third, 15-13. Vancouver took three penalties and San Jose took two.
The Sharks next play on Monday in Anaheim against the Ducks at 7:00 PM PT.
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