“We’ve had a road trip where we’ve been in games and we’ve been relatively happy with it, and I think it’s just good to get a result tonight,” Sharks forward Tyler Toffoli said. “We have a lot of fun in here and it’s one of those things where it [stinks] to lose but when we come to the rink and have fun and hang out outside of the rink, we’re for the most part always together, so it was fun (tonight).”
Jack Thompson and Toffoli scored, and Alexandar Georgiev made 25 saves for the Sharks (16-37-9), who won for the first time since defeating the Pittsburgh Penguins 2-1 on Jan. 27 (0-5-3). Alexander Wennberg had two assists.
The Sharks had lost three of the first four games of their seven-game road trip by one goal.
“It was amazing,” Wennberg said. “It’s been a few games where we’ve been really close to winning, so right now to find a way to win, being down a few goals and bouncing back, it’s a great feeling for the team.”
John Tavares had a goal and an assist, and Anthony Stolarz made 20 saves for the Maple Leafs (38-20-3), who had won five in a row.
“First two periods were probably one of our best first 40 minutes in a long time,” Stolarz said. “They’re a feisty team, obviously. You look at the standings and they’re down there but at the end of the day, they’re a young group who are hungry and looking to build towards the future. They just got some breaks and a few key couple lapses by us, myself included.”
Toronto outshot San Jose 21-10 through two periods.
“The biggest thing was I just felt like we were down on ourselves, and that can happen with where we are at, right?” San Jose coach Ryan Warsofsky said. “The loses have piled up but we’ve been doing some pretty good things and we can’t feel bad for ourselves. It’s the National Hockey League. I just reminded them we had eight guys who had a lot of family and friends here to watch them and they came to watch 60 minutes, not 40, and my last message was it would be a (heck) of a story. Credit to the group, they dug in, kept competing and found a way to win.”
Thompson cut the deficit to 2-1 at 2:23 of the third period. Wennberg’s point shot came back off the end boards to Thompson, who shot past Stolarz from the right face-off circle.
“When I was a kid, I dreamed about scoring goals out here,” said Thompson, who grew up in Courtice, Ontario, about an hour east of Toronto, and had more than 25 family and friends in attendance. “So, it was pretty cool to do it. I think I blacked out a bit, but it was special.”
