Burns scores late goal, lifts Sharks past Wild

ST. PAUL, Minn. --Brent Burns broke a tie with 1:48 remaining in the third period to give the San Jose Sharks a 5-3 win against the Minnesota Wild at Xcel Energy Center on Sunday.

Burns gave the Sharks a 4-3 lead with a backhand shot for his second goal of the season. Ryan Donato, Evander Kane, Noah Gregor and Matt Nieto also scored for the Sharks (3-3-0), who salvaged a split of their two-game set with the Wild following a 4-1 loss here on Friday. Martin Jones made 26 saves.
"[Jones] was huge for us again tonight, made some huge saves for us at key times," Burns said. "It's a big win. I talked about it before, I felt like that was probably our best game by far that we played so far. Most complete, we competed and played hard.
"That would have been a tough one to lose. … You lose that first game, you have to win the second game. … It was nice to get that and feel good. That's one you hate to see not come through with two points."
Zach Parise, Nick Bjugstad and Kevin Fiala scored, and Kaapo Kahkonen made 31 saves for the Wild (4-2-0), who were denied a third straight win.
"We thought we started fine, but then it just kind of got away from us," Minnesota coach Dean Evason said. "They obviously had a lot more shots and attempts; I think they out-chanced us a couple more in that first period, and we thought we were fortunate and then we thought we'd come in and thought maybe [in] the second period we were going to be real good and come out and throw it [at them], and we didn't.
"For whatever reason, obviously we've got to go back and figure out why if it was a mental thing or if it was a physical thing, but we'll hopefully get that sorted out before we play in a couple of days (against the Los Angeles Kings on Tuesday)."

Parise made it 1-0 at 4:21 of the first period on the Wild's first shot on goal. Kirill Kaprizov fed Parise for a partial 2-on-1, and Parise chipped a shot over Jones' shoulder.
Donato tied it 1-1 at 19:02 of the first with a shot from the right side of the net that got between Kahkonen's pads.
"I think it felt better knowing I had so many opportunities the past couple of games and didn't score," Donato said. "It's funny sometimes how the ones [that] are least expected go in and I was just happy with that."
Kane scored a power-play goal at 6:39 of the second period when he one-timed a pass from Timo Meier to give San Jose a 2-1 lead.
Bjugstad thought he scored 1:06 later when he jammed the puck over the goal line at 7:45 of the second. But the Sharks used their coach's challenge, and video review determined Bjugstad interfered with Jones.
Gregor then scored his first goal of the season at 8:26 of the second period with a wrist shot to make it 3-1.

Bjugstad scored his first goal with the Wild at 16:47 of the second, a redirection to make it 3-2. The center was traded by the Pittsburgh Penguins to Minnesota on Sept. 11, 2020 for a conditional pick in the 2021 NHL Draft.
"It does show that we're resilient and keeping it positive and doing our best to come back," Bjugstad said. "But more often than not, we can't keep putting ourselves in those situations and expect to win games."
Fiala tied it 3-3 with a power-play goal at 7:20 of the third, four seconds after Sharks forward Marcus Sorensen was penalized for slashing.
Nieto scored an empty-net goal at 19:31 for the 5-3 final.
"You're playing with fire, obviously," Evason said. "We've been fortunate a couple of times to come back from a couple of goals down, and obviously we did it again tonight. But it burnt us in the end."
NOTES: It was Burns' 40th game-winning goal in the NHL, and 27th since joining the Sharks in 2011-12. It's 15 more than their next closest defenseman (Marc-Edouard Vlasic). … Kaprizov is tied with New Jersey Devils defenseman Ty Smith for the NHL rookie lead in assists (five) and points (six). He is the first rookie in Wild history to average a point per game through his first six NHL games.