After a five-game road trip, the San José Sharks returned to the SAP Center on Tuesday night and defeated the Calgary Flames 6-3.
The win extends the Sharks’ winning streak to three games and snaps the Flames’ seven-game win streak against the Sharks.
San José now sits at 17-14-3, while Calgary falls to 13-17-4.
Sharks center Macklin Celebrini led the way with two goals and two assists, including a spin-o-rama finish at 2:46 of the third period.
He now has 18 goals on the season.
Celebrini said the energy around the group has been growing.
“We love winning. Our group, it’s fun,” Celebrini said. “It’s enjoyable to be around the rink when you’re winning and you’re playing well as a group and you just kind of feed off it.”
San José opened the scoring just 1:02 into the first period on a goal from defenseman John Klingberg, who now has eight goals this season with four arriving in the last three games.
The Sharks built early momentum with a pair of first-period goals from forward Barclay Goodrow, giving him three on the season.
He said the scoring came from being in the right spots.
“A couple lucky bounces, was able to find the back of the net,” Goodrow said.
Calgary responded with two goals to erase the Sharks’ early advantage.
Calgary forward Blake Coleman scored his 10th of the season at 11:01 of the first period and three minutes later, his teammate on the left wing Ryan Lomberg scored his first of the season to tie the game 2-2.
Sharks’ head coach Ryan Warsofsky said the group handled the momentum swings well.
“I thought for the most part we controlled good moments of the game,” Warsofsky said. “I thought at times we complicated it a little bit and we kind of put ourselves on our heels, but I thought big goal there to make it 3-2 at the end of the period and I thought our third period was actually pretty solid.”
San José added to its lead in the third period with center Tyler Toffoli sending one into the back of the net off a falling-backward shot on goal from left-winger William Eklund, who aided Toffoli in his 300th goal of his NHL career.
Toffoli said the scoring play was one he and left winger William Eklund often look for.
“A couple times I was coming off a wall with a faceoff and Becky (Eklund) always wants to do something similar to what we did when we scored,” Toffoli said. “We gave him a call and he made a great play to me.”
Eklund now has 14 assists this season.
The Sharks also won the battle in the net with goalie Yaroslav Askarov blocking 26 out of 30 shots on goal, while Flames goalie Dustin Wolf made 20 saves on 25 shots.
San José had 22 giveaways compared to Calgary’s 16. However, the Sharks balanced that out with takeaways, finishing with five to the Flames’ four.
San José will continue its three-game homestand on Thursday at 7 p.m. against the Dallas Stars, who currently sit second place in the Central Division with 49 points.
