The San Jose Sharks will look to continue playing with winning habits when they open a five-game road trip in Vancouver against the Canucks on Tuesday night.
San Jose has not played since defeating the visiting New York Rangers 3-1 on Friday night.
Macklin Celebrini scored twice and Pavol Regenda also tallied for the Sharks, who are 9-4-0 in their past 13 games.
Will Smith and Collin Graf added a pair of assists each, while Alex Nedeljkovic made 28 saves for his fifth straight win.
“More maturity in our game in the third (period), I liked that,” Sharks coach Ryan Warsofsky said. “We played with some better winning habits in the third. Not so much in the second half of that second period. We weren’t very good as far as our details with the puck (and) without the puck, so I’m glad we kind of locked it in there.”
Celebrini and Regenda scored first-period power-play goals 1:59 apart, giving San Jose an early 2-0 lead.
“I think we’ve been frustrated with how our power play has been going,” Celebrini said. “We want it to be a difference-maker for our group and help our group win games, and we haven’t really done that the last couple of games.”
Celebrini’s second goal of the opening frame gave the Sharks a 3-0 lead. It was the forward’s seventh career multi-goal period. At 19 years, 224 days, Celebrini became the second-youngest active player to reach 50 career goals, trailing just Sidney Crosby.
The Vancouver native ranked fourth in the league in points (74) and assists (48) through the weekend while pacing the Sharks with 26 goals.
The Canucks host the Sharks as part of an eight-game homestand. Vancouver has just one victory through the first five games of that stretch and is coming off a 3-2 loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins on Sunday.
Jake DeBrusk and Teddy Blueger scored while Kevin Lankinen made 22 saves for the Canucks, who have lost back-to-back games and are 1-11-2 in their past 14.
Canucks coach Adam Foote did not have an update on forward Brock Boeser, who received a hit to the head from Penguins forward Bryan Rust in the final seconds of the Sunday game.
Rust will have a hearing regarding the illegal check to the head, the league announced on Monday.
“It was a head shot — it was shoulder in his head,” Foote said postgame. “Even though he may have been desperate to get back (into the play) because it was a scrum at the net, I still think it was something that you’ve got to be in control of your body. I thought it was a little bit of a vicious hit to the head.”
The Tuesday contest will be the third of the teams’ four meetings this season. San Jose won the first two contests 3-2 (Nov. 28 at home) and 6-3 (Dec. 27 on the road).
–Field Level Media
