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Quick bites: Chaotic Sharks win over Avalanche

Posted on by Annie Moore

The SAP Center didn’t just get free tacos Saturday afternoon; it got a show. The San Jose Sharks fought a very interesting physical battle against the Colorado Avalanche and walked out with a very nice win.

First period

Things didn’t start out well for the Sharks. Less than a minute in, Colorado’s Martin Necas put one past Sharks’ goaltender Yaroslav Askarov with help from Cale Makar and Devon Toews. 

The quick strike by the Avalanche put the Sharks back on their heels. Colorado came at them in waves, hemming them into their defensive zone. San Jose didn’t get out of the defensive zone until two minutes in the game thanks to a strong play by William Eklund. Even that didn’t generate much in the way of offense.

The Sharks gained some ground when Barclay Goodrow received a nasty high stick from Ilya Solovyov at 5:55 of the first period, putting the Sharks on their first power play. At that point, they had yet to have a single shot on goal. Jeff Skinner and Philipp Kurashev changed that, but both were repelled from the goal. The power play ended with no production.

But it shifted the momentum, and the Sharks spent a good amount of time in the Colorado defensive zone, with some more great plays by Eklund, and good looks and communication all around.

With six minutes left in the first period, John Klingberg went to the penalty box for interference, and the Avalanche was on its first power play of the afternoon. The good news was that the Sharks’ penalty kill held strong and was able to keep the puck out of the net.

The Sharks continued to build on the momentum, and who else, but Macklin Celebrini found a time to strike. With 1:39 remaining in the period, Celebrini fired a shot that beat Colorado goaltender Mackenzie Blackwood to tie the game 1-1. It was Celebrini’s 7th of the season.

The frame ended on that note, and 14 saves from Askarov. Not too shabby.

Second period

The second period started with bad news. Timothy Liljegren would not return to the game. Liljegren left late in the first period when a loose puck deflected onto the Sharks’ bench and hit him in the face.

While the Sharks played the rest of the game with just five defensemen, the good news postgame was that it does not appear to be a long-term injury.

On the ice, Askarov continued his strong work to give the Sharks a chance to win the game. Four minutes in, he gave the crowd a scare when he thought he saved the puck, and it slid right behind him. The good news is he got it before it could slide over the line. But it created a very tense moment at SAP Center.

This gave Kurashev a chance to give the Sharks the team’s first lead of the game.

While the Sharks were able to kill off a slashing penalty by Celebrini shortly thereafter, a player like Colorado’s Nathan MacKinnon won’t be denied forever. In a chaotic fashion, there was a little hubbub by the Sharks’ goal. As MacKinnon was driving the net, Skinner knocked it off its moorings.

For those of you wondering why the goal counted, Bay Area News Group’s Curtis Pashelka sent out the following tweet from the situation room:

That didn’t matter to Head Coach Ryan Warsofsky. He did not like the call so much that he took Kurashev’s stick right out of his hands.

The game was tied, and the period died down. While both teams had chances, the Avalanche were clearly the dominant team. Without Askarov holding strong, the Sharks would have been in a tough situation. The Sharks were outshot 16-5 in the second frame and the scoring chances were 17-4 in favor of the Avalanche, according to Natural Stat Trick.

Third period

In the third period, the Avalanche picked up right where they left off. While the Sharks had an early power play thanks to a delay of game penalty by Toews, ultimately, the Sharks were not able to capitalize.

Celebrini was looking really good this game. Yes, he does pretty much every game, but his ability to dangle Brent Burns, have clean, perfect passes every single time, and have significant time on ice, he was the backbone of this game.

With 12 minutes left, the Sharks had another opportunity to take the lead when Gabriel Landeskog high-sticked Skinner. It was a chaotic man-advantage. Askarov went to the faceoff circle to deflect a puck and fell on his rear. Parker Kelly got possession and was very close to scoring, but Askarov was able to do a very stylish trip, and it wasn’t called.  

In the last few minutes of the game, it was a mix of rage from the Sharks and tiredness from the Avalanche, in yet another back-and-forth segment. The buzzer went off, and the Sharks were headed into some overtime hockey.

Overtime

Overtime started off tense, with Alexander Wennberg winning the first faceoff and Dmitry Orlov immediately trying Blackwood. Askarov answered with some nice stops. 

 Celebrini was all over the ice, winning another faceoff and nearly ending the game himself with a quick wrister. Just a minute later, Wennberg found Philipp Kurashev, and Kurashev buried it for his fifth of the season. The Sharks win, 3–2 in overtime, and the Tank erupted.

Postgame

Warsofsky walked out of the locker room with a smile on his face, a confirmation of significant progress.

“We’re getting better. We’re learning lessons as we go. Done some really good things. I liked our third period a lot,” he said.

He understands that it’s a grind and that the Sharks are taking the hard learning moments well.

“That is a lesson for me. It’s a lesson in life. You got to keep working and go through the adversity, and at the end of the day, it’s going to make us a stronger group,” he told the media.

Overtime showed exactly what Warsofsky was talking about. The Sharks didn’t panic, didn’t force plays, they just kept working. The confidence was there, the patience was there, and finally, the payoff was there. It was earned. The kind of moment that proves this team is learning how to win the hard way.

“It’s an emotional sport. We’re not going to get every call that we think we should get. We’re not going to like some calls. We’re not going to like some bounces. What are we going to stomp our feet and cry? We’ve continued to work. We’ve got to continue to compete. We have to earn what we get, and our group is starting to figure that out,” Warsofsky said.

It looks like we’ve got a team that is on the right track.

Scoring summary Colorado Avalanche at San Jose Sharks Nov. 1, 2025

First Period
0:30 COL Martin Necas from Cale Makar and Devon Toews
18:21 SJS Macklin Celebrini from Tyler Toffoli and Shakir Mukhamadullin

Second Period
4:07 SJS Philipp Kurashev from Ty Dellandrea and John Klingberg
9:10 COL Nathan MacKinnon from Artturi Lehkonen and Valeri Nichushkin

Third Period
No scoring

Overtime
1:48 SJS Philipp Kurashev from Alex Wennberg

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