Adrian Kempe scored, and David Rittich made 15 saves for the Kings (40-25-11), who have won six of their past nine and were coming off a 5-2 win against the Seattle Kraken on Wednesday.
"We'll take the win," Los Angeles interim coach Jim Hiller said. "They played hard. We didn't give them much. Didn't like our power play, but we got the win, so we'll just move forward from here."
The Kings remained one point behind the Nashville Predators for the first wild card into the Stanley Cup Playoffs from the Western Conference. The Predators defeated the St. Louis Blues 6-3 on Thursday.
"In the end, all anybody cares about tomorrow is, did you get the two points or didn't you?" Hiller said. "So, we'll take the two points. We'll leave this one behind. We'll have a rest tomorrow and then we'll work on the next two points."
Klim Kostin scored, and Mackenzie Blackwood made 25 saves for the Sharks (17-50-8), who are 1-10-1 in their past 12 games.
"I didn't love our team's first period. We played much better in the second and third," San Jose coach David Quinn said. "They know they're good. Nobody's nervous, nobody's rattled. The guy who has the puck knows he's good, and then he looks around and sees the other four guys and he knows they're pretty good. So [they] play with a little different swagger and poise and calmness."
Kempe gave the Kings a 1-0 lead at 10:55 of the first period when he scored on a breakaway.
"To get a good start was really important," Los Angeles forward Pierre-Luc Dubois said. "We did that, and that was the difference-maker tonight."
