CASPER
New member
SAN JOSE, Calif. – Dany Heatley scored the tying goal and Manny Malhotra delivered the winner in a span of less than 3 minutes in the third period to lead the San Jose Sharks to a 3-2 victory over the Montreal Canadiens on Thursday night.
Patrick Marleau scored a short-handed goal and Evgeni Nabokov made 28 saves for the Sharks, who were coming off their first back-to-back regulation losses of the season.
This game appeared headed that direction with Carey Price stopping almost everything San Jose sent his way and the posts doing the rest on three occasions to help Montreal hang onto the one-goal lead.
But the Sharks finally broke through with the two goals in the third to win for just the third time in 17 games this season when they trailed after two periods. The Canadiens had been 19-1-0 when leading after two.
With Roman Hamrlik in the penalty box, Heatley deflected Dan Boyle's shot past Carey Price to tie it at 2 with 7:28 to play. Malhotra scored his 10th goal 2:33 later, one-timing a pass from Torrey Mitchell past Price to give the Sharks the lead.
Nabokov made it hold up, making a sharp glove save to rob Andrei Kostitsyn with 49.1 seconds remaining, prompting chants of "Nabby! Nabby!" from the appreciative crowd. Nabokov needed this kind of game after allowing six goals in less than two periods in Russia's Olympic loss to Canada last week and four goals to New Jersey in a loss on Thursday.
San Jose has won five straight home games against Montreal since November 1999.
This was the only meeting of the season between the teams and it was a chippy affair almost from the start with hitting and jawing after nearly every whistle.
Early in the third period Scott Nichol hit the post for San Jose before being driven to the boards by Maxim Lapierre. Nichol was down for a few moments before getting up and yelling at the officials and Lapierre, while holding his right shoulder. Ryan Clowe got a penalty on the play but Montreal couldn't convert on the power play.
