Sharks lose to Oilers, fail to clinch playoff berth

SAN JOSE -- The San Jose Sharks will have to wait two more days for another chance to clinch a berth in the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
The Edmonton Oilers scored four times in the second period to overcome a two-goal deficit and defeated the Sharks 6-3 at SAP Center on Thursday, preventing San Jose from clinching a spot in the playoffs.

San Jose led 2-0 after one period, but Lauri Korpikoski, Taylor Hall, Adam Clendening and Pat Maroon scored to give Edmonton a 4-3 lead through two periods.
Jordan Eberle scored his 24th goal of the season at 12:54 of the third, knocking a rebound past James Reimer to make it 5-3. Hall scored into an empty net with 5.8 seconds remaining, giving him 25 goals for the season.

"Disappointing, considering our first period," Sharks coach Peter DeBoer said. "I really liked our first period, I thought we came ready to play. Controlled a lot of the game, the shots, chances. If the game had ended after 20 minutes I would have been pretty happy.
"Unfortunately you can't play 20 minutes in this league and expect to win. For whatever reason, from that point on we stopped playing. To their credit, we knew they would push back. We didn't respond. It's a disappointing last 40 minutes. They were more desperate over the last 40 minutes. We weren't good."
Reimer made 16 saves for the Sharks (41-27-6) and lost for the first time in six career decisions against Edmonton, which visits the Los Angeles Kings on Saturday.
Tommy Wingels, Joe Pavelski and Patrick Marleau scored for San Jose, which had one shot on goal in the first 16 minutes of the third period. The Sharks have another opportunity to clinch a playoff berth when they host the Dallas Stars on Saturday.

Cam Talbot made 22 saves for the Oilers (30-40-7), who were outshot 12-4 in the first period as they dug themselves a two-goal hole. Coach Todd McLellan delivered an angry message during the first intermission.
"I liked the response," said McLellan after defeating his former team. "The message was we were getting outworked, outcompeted, outhustled. And not playing very smart. I just thought we were letting ourselves off the hook. We haven't done that all year. We've been a competitive, scrappy team. We may not win as many games, but the effort's always been there, and I thought we left ourselves off the hook in the first. Challenged them and they came out and responded well. A real good sign for us."
The Sharks, who lost 1-0 to the St. Louis Blues on Tuesday, squandered their second opportunity to clinch a playoff spot. They could have backed into the playoffs if the Arizona Coyotes had lost to Dallas earlier Thursday, but Arizona won 3-1 at Gila River Arena.
The Sharks remained five points behind the Pacific Division-leading Kings and fell two points behind the second-place Anaheim Ducks. The Kings lost 4-1 to the Winnipeg Jets, and the Ducks lost 6-5 in overtime to the Toronto Maple Leafs.

"Maybe we thought it was going to be easy and we were going to score a couple more goals, and we didn't, then they tied the game," Sharks defenseman Roman Polak said. "After that, it was just too many turnovers at the blue line. Just can't play the game like that. They have good speed up front, good skill guys, and they took it to us."
San Jose grabbed a 1-0 lead at 3:47 of the first period on Wingels' seventh goal of the season. Polak took a slap shot from the point, and Wingels deflected the puck past Talbot.
Pavelski made it 2-0 at 11:41 with his 35th goal of the season and 11th on the power play. Joe Thornton fed a pass from below the goal line to a wide-open Pavelski, who beat Talbot with a slap shot to the far side.
Edmonton cut San Jose's lead to 2-1 at 1:39 of the second period when Korpikoski deflected Clendening's shot from the point past Reimer after Mark Letestu won a faceoff in the right circle. The Oilers pulled even at 8:18 when Hall scored an unassisted goal on a wrist shot from the right circle.

"We kind of got our butts in gear and started playing hockey again," Hall said. "Hockey, it can be such a simple game when you just get pucks in and play as a unit, play as five guys. We have to do that every game. We can't wait till the second period to get going. Just goes to show when we want to play our game and play well, it doesn't matter where we are, the situation, we can do that."
Clendening gave Edmonton a 3-2 lead at 9:03 with his first goal of the season and second of his NHL career. He scored on a shot from the point through heavy traffic.
The Oilers' first lead of the night didn't last long. With Maroon in the penalty box for slashing Thornton, Marleau knocked in his own rebound from close range for a power-play goal at 12:36. It was his 21st of the season.
But Edmonton regained the lead with 1:56 left in the period when Maroon scored his seventh goal of the season. Connor McDavid led a 2-on-1 rush and fed a cross-ice pass to Maroon, who beat Reimer with a wrist shot. With the assist, McDavid extended his point streak to six games.

"They came out strong the last 40 minutes and found a way to get some goals," Pavelski said. "A couple of pucks sneaked in here and there. It's too bad but we had some chances. We played some good hockey. It just didn't go our way.
Regroup and come back strong on Saturday."
Sharks forward Joonas Donskoi left the game about seven minutes into the second period with an undisclosed injury and did not return. DeBoer said he won't have an update on Donskoi until Friday morning.