SAN JOSE — All that’s important to the Sharks right now are the two points.
It doesn’t matter that they allowed five goals or more for the third time in six games, or that their No. 1 goalie is going through a difficult stretch. All that the Sharks cared about Saturday was getting the win.
Joonas Donskoi had three points — including the game-tying goal late in the third period — and Marc-Edouard Vlasic got credit for scoring the winning goal in overtime as the Sharks topped the Arizona Coyotes 6-5 at SAP Center.
Vlasic charged toward the net and made contact with Christian Dvorak, whose skate appeared to tap the puck over the goal line with 2:18 left in overtime. Joe Pavelski and Joe Thornton had the assists, as the Sharks came out of their bye week to snap a three-game losing streak in exhilarating fashion.
“First game back. It took a while to get our legs, but we found a way to get a win,” Vlasic said. “It’s all getting points now.”
With the win, the Sharks — now officially at the midway point of the season — have 50 points, one back of Dallas for the second wild card spot in the Western Conference and two back of Calgary for third place in the Pacific Division.
The Sharks made some dazzling offensive plays — most notably by Donskoi — in their first game in nearly a week.
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Donskoi had a goal and an assist before he scored with 15.8 seconds left in the third period to tie the game 5-5, banging away at a loose puck beside the Arizona net before it finally crossed the goal line.
He also gave the Sharks a 4-3 lead at the 17:07 mark of the second period with a nifty individual effort. Donskoi got a stick on a long pass from Mikkel Boedker, and as the puck slid toward the Coyotes’ goal, he raced in and chipped it over a charging Scott Wedgewood into the net to snap a 10-game goal drought.
His assist was also memorable, as he took control of the puck inside the Coyotes’ zone, held off Oliver Ekman-Larsson and Kevin Connauton, and somehow found Logan Couture for a goal and a 3-2 Sharks lead.
Donskoi came into Saturday with just one assist in his last 10 games.
“It was kind of good to get a couple of days off for me,” Donskoi said. “I really hope I can play better the rest of the season.”
Ekman-Larsson and Josh Archibald both scored in the first 6:22 of the third period to give the Coyotes a 5-4 lead, continuing an ugly defensive trend for San Jose. On their five-game road trip before the break, the Sharks allowed 19 goals in regulation time or overtime.
Goalie Martin Jones was pulled at the 13:40 mark of the first after Christian Fischer got behind the Sharks defense and beat him on a breakaway to tie the score 3-3.
It was just the second time in his two-and-a-half seasons that Jones had been pulled in the first period. The other came in Nov. 2015 when he lasted just 3:30 in a game against the New York Islanders.
The Sharks had done a solid job this season of beating the NHL’s worst teams this season, and can’t afford to let these points get away.
Against the teams that entered Saturday at least five points out of a playoff spot, the Sharks were a combined 9-2-2. They beat the Coyotes 3-1 on Nov. 22 in Arizona.
These are the teams the Sharks will have to take care of if they want to keep pace in the Western Conference, where, as of the start of Saturday, six points separated fifth through 12th place.
“You’ve got to take care of all of them. We’re playing (Los Angeles on Monday), and they’re ahead of us in the standings, so you’ve got to take care of that game in order to catch them,” Vlasic said. “Every game is important. First one, 80th one, every game is important and you need points. It’s all about getting points and climbing the standings.”
The Sharks will have just about the busiest schedule in the NHL over the next 12 weeks, starting with this stretch of six games in nine days.
After Saturday, they play three games in four days on the road, the two-time defending Stanley Cup champion Pittsburgh Penguins at home next Saturday and the Ducks in Anaheim on Jan. 21.
▪ Sportsnet in Canada reported that the Sharks are looking to move defenseman Paul Martin via trade. Martin was a healthy scratch for the seventh straight game Saturday, and he hasn’t played in a game for the Sharks since Dec. 7 against Carolina.
Martin is in the third year of a four-year contract that carries a $4.85 million cap hit for next season. Martin’s contract carries a modified no-trade clause, limiting the amount of teams the Sharks can trade him to.
Martin has played just three games this season as he’s battled injuries almost from the start. He had offseason ankle surgery, then re-injured the ankle in early October. As he neared a comeback in November, he hurt himself in a off-ice workout.