Sharks edge Red Wings in shootout

Even when the San Jose Sharks don’t score, they win.

Logan Couture scored in the shootout and San Jose beat the Detroit Red Wings 1-0 at Joe Louis Arena on Monday night.

The Sharks (8-0-1) are the NHL's last team without a regulation loss. It was the first game of a four-game Eastern road swing for San Jose.

"We scored a lot of goals in our first eight games. We're not going to keep scoring like that," Couture said.

Each goalie was credited with a shutout for not allowing a goal in 65 minutes.

Antti Niemi, who recorded his 24th career shutout, made 24 saves for San Jose and Jimmy Howard, who earned his 17th shutout, stopped 27 shots for the Red Wings.

It was Niemi's third shutout against Detroit. He also stopped Todd Bertuzzi on Detroit's final shootout attempt with a spectacular pad save.

"Not much space out there. It was very playoff like," Sharks coach Todd McLellan said. "Both teams a prevent-type game. ... It was a chess match, there's no doubt about it. Even on the power play and penalty kills, the teams didn't get a lot of looks."

Howard praised the way his team played without the puck.

"I thought we did a good job on their top guys. We didn't give them a lot of room and space. Another thing that was a positive was we didn't give up a lot of odd-man rushes," Howard said. "That's been an Achilles' heel of late for us. We did a great job of keeping the third man high in the offensive zone, making them come 200 feet. We didn't turn pucks over. It's a good sign."

Detroit's Brendan Smith hit the outside of the goal post with 4:57 remaining in regulation. Niemi made an outstanding save on Daniel Alfredsson's shot from the bottom of the right circle 7:31 into the second period.

San Jose outshot Detroit 7-4 in a scoreless opening period, in which the Red Wings killed off two penalties.

"There was two pretty good teams there tonight. I thought our young D played pretty good. There wasn't much in the way of scoring chances either way," Red Wings coach Mike Babcock said.

"Both teams played real tight. I thought it was a good game. Just no room for either team. I think both teams checked really well. Not a lot of freedom for guys."

The Sharks announced after the game they acquired right wing Mike Brown from the Edmonton Oilers in exchange for a fourth-round pick at the 2014 NHL Draft.

Material from wire services was used in this report.