The Canucks and Sharks traded scoring chances and went down to the wire, but the Sharks ended up on the wrong side of this one in a 4-3 overtime loss.
The Canucks strike first in the first period via Kyle Burroughs. Team Teal answered back late in the second period in unusual fashion: the initial shot by Matt Benning was deflected by Nick Bonino, went off the back of Luke Kunin and over a few Canucks defenders, and bounced into the net. This is credited as Luke Kunin's fourth goal of the season, making it 1-1 through two periods of play. What an unbelievable sequence.
The Sharks went ahead fairly early in the third period on Logan Couture's 12th goal of the season on the power play, with assists from Erik Karlsson and Alexander Barabanov, only for the Canucks to tie it up again shortly after via Ilya Mikheyev. A few minutes later, Elias Pettersson tipped one in to give the Canucks another one-goal lead. In a matter of minutes, Luke Kunin scores his second goal of the game on a great setup from Erik Karlsson to tie the game at three and send it to OT.
It wasn't long into overtime when a costly turnover by Timo Meier ultimately lead to a breakaway chance by Andrei Kuzmenko, who scored the game-winning goal in overtime for the Canucks. Timo meant to pass the puck to Tomas Hertl when Hertl was heading to the bench, leading to a slow line change by the Sharks, miscommunication, and the breakaway by Vancouver that won them the game.
Kaapo Kahkonen was given the start in net, making a total of 16 saves. In addition, prior to this game, Mario Ferraro was placed on the IR with a lower-body injury, and Scott Harrington was recalled from the Barracuda. However, Harrington was inactive against the Canucks Sunday night.
The Sharks had a great third period to at least earn a point and played well enough to win, but a few untimely and costly miscues are the main factors as to why the Canucks won their fourth straight game against the Sharks Sunday night. Most importantly, this Sharks team has proved that they can hang in there, remain resilient, and have some of the pieces in place to win games. Next up, the Sharks head out on a lengthy road trip to Eastern Canada, with the first stop in Montreal against the Canadiens on Tuesday at 4 pm PT.
Sources: NBC Sports Bay Area/California, NHL App, Bay Area News Group
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