The San Jose Sharks will be playing with a bit less of a burden when they entertain the Pittsburgh Penguins on Wednesday night to conclude a brief two-game homestand.
Ivar Stenberg scored in the eighth round of the shootout on Monday night as the Sharks edged the New York Islanders 3-2 to end a five-game losing streak.
“It gives us a little bit of weight off our shoulders in a sense,” said Sharks coach Ryan Warsofsky. “Obviously, any time you go through some struggles and don’t win hockey games, you start fighting it a little bit. I’m proud of the group to continue to push forward. We battled. We kept going. That’s what we’ve done the last three games.”
Stenberg also scored in regulation, while Tyler Toffoli tallied and added an assist.
Goaltender Yaroslav Askarov made 30 saves in regulation and stopped all eight shots he faced in the shootout to earn his first career win in three games against the Islanders.
Askarov, expected to start Wednesday, is 5-8-0 in 13 starts this season while posting an .889 save percentage and a 3.22 goals-against average.
With the victory, the Sharks improved to 4-5-0 on home ice and won for just the second time in nine games (2-7-0).
“That’s the hope: to kind of get this thing going now,” Warsofsky said. “I think we’ve put three pretty good games together, even though we didn’t get the results in the first two.”
Wednesday is the first of two meetings this season between the Penguins and Sharks. Pittsburgh and San Jose split a pair of games last season with each team winning on the road.
The Penguins head to the Bay Area to conclude a three-game California road trip, following a 5-2 loss to the Anaheim Ducks on Sunday.
Kris Letang and Rickard Rakell scored while Evgeni Malkin added a pair of helpers.
Arturs Silovs made 20 saves for the Penguins, who have just one win in their last six outings (1-4-1) and are 2-7-1 on the road this season.
“I think with this group, we’ve had pushes,” said Penguins coach Dan Muse. “We don’t need to put ourselves in the holes that we do. Even (in Anaheim), when you’re down by that much, even if it’s two goals, I believe in our group, and they’re going to fight till the very end, and we’re going to give ourselves a chance to come back.”
Silovs, Wednesday’s expected starter, is 5-6-1 in 12 starts this season with an .873 save percentage and a 3.35 GAA.
Defenseman Erik Karlsson paces the Penguins with 15 assists and 18 points through 18 games, while Tommy Novak and Nick Robertson share the team lead with seven goals apiece in 18 contests.
The Penguins were tied for the sixth-most goals against (65) entering Tuesday’s action, and Muse is expecting another tough defensive assignment against the Sharks.
“We have to continue to take steps in our defensive game, what we’re giving up and what we can limit it to,” he said. “We have another young, fast team (in San Jose) coming up, and the defensive side of it there… when we’re doing it, when we’re defending the right way, it’s leading to us having the puck more. We have to become more consistent with it.
