The San Jose Sharks wrapped up a playoff berth on Wednesday night by defeating the Vancouver Canucks 5-4 in OT in Vancouver. Christian Ehrhoff scored the winning goal just 34 seconds into overtime to cap an exciting come from behind win for the Sharks.
Center Joe Thornton tallied four assists for San Jose including helpers on the tying goal by Scott Hannan with just 4:03 left in the third period and the game winner by Ehrhoff.
The Canucks led 2-0 early on first period power play goals by Mattias Ohlund and Markus Naslund. The Sharks scored twice in a 1:36 span late in the period to tie the game at 2-2. Grant Stevenson and Nils Ekman were the goal scorers, both set up by Thornton.
After Milan Michalek gave San Jose a 3-2 lead in the second period, Daniel Sedin's power play tally evened the score at 3-3 after two periods.
The Canucks grabbed a 4-3 lead on a goal by Bryan Allen at the 6:14 mark which held up until Hannan's equalizer with just over four minutes left in regulation time.
The win was the sixth straight for San Jose who turned their season around shortly after acquiring Thornton from Boston on November 30. The Sharks were 8-12-4 before trading for Thornton and have gone 34-14-7 since Thornton joined the club. The London, Ontario native is second in the NHL with 119 points and leads the league with 91 assists.
Goalie Vesa Toskala made 20 saves to earn the win for San Jose. Toskala has been red hot during the stretch drive for the Sharks and was named the NHL's defensive player of the week this past Sunday. The win was Toskala's sixth straight, giving him a 22-7-4 record for the season.
The slumping Canucks have just two games left and are still one point behind Edmonton in the race for the final playoff spot in the West. They play San Jose again on the road Thursday before their season finale Saturday at home against Colorado.
With the win, the Sharks moved into sixth place in the Western Conference, one point ahead of Colorado and just one point behind fifth place Anaheim. Both the Mighty Ducks and the Sharks have three games remaining on their schedules.
