Nolan Clears the Air, Then Buries the Puck : Hockey: Meeting with coach rejuvenates right wing, who scores four goals and has an assist in Sharks’ victory.

Everyone needs a kick in the rear end once in a while.

So says Owen Nolan, who got his from interim San Jose Shark Coach Jim Wiley. Sunday, Wiley benched his inconsistent right wing for the final 10 minutes of a 4-2 loss to the Dallas Stars.

Later, they talked and hashed out a few things. “Nothing major,” Nolan said.

Tuesday, Nolan looked like a new and vastly improved player, pleasing his coach with his unselfish play. Funny how scoring four goals and assisting on a fifth will do that.

“He showed he can be successful as an individual even if he puts the team game ahead of the individual game,” Wiley said after the Sharks routed the Mighty Ducks, 7-4, at The Pond.

“It was an unselfish game.”

It also was the first four-goal game of Nolan’s career and the first in Shark history.

“I’ll just say he’s an integral part of our club and he made the appropriate adjustment,” Wiley said.

That is to say, Nolan skated every shift as if he were a rookie making his NHL debut. He wasn’t mistake-free, admitting a giveaway at the Shark blue line that led to a Duck goal. But he played hard and that made a huge difference.

“I knew I wasn’t up to par [against Dallas],” Nolan said. “I can’t afford to take a night off. . . . In order to set a good example, I’ve got to work every night.”

The Ducks certainly helped him look good Tuesday, losing track of him far too often.

Less than two minutes into the game, Michal Sykora slipped the puck to a wide open Nolan on the right wing. Unchallenged, he skated into the slot and flipped a backhander past Guy Hebert for a 1-0 San Jose lead.

By the end of the period, the Ducks were through and so was Hebert, his first start since Dec. 7 cut short after giving up three goals in 20 minutes.

Nolan was just getting warmed up. Fifty-seven seconds into the second, he beat Mikhail Shtalenkov for a 4-0 Shark lead. After the Ducks cut the lead in half, Nolan assisted on Andrei Nazarov’s goal for a 5-2 advantage.

Nolan earned his hat trick with the Sharks on a five-on-three power play 13:21 into the second period. Again standing alone in the slot, he whipped a low shot past Shtalenkov.

Goal No. 4 came but 36 seconds later, Nolan making it look routine with a fine move to his backhand to beat Shtalenkov.

It was 7-2 by then and the crowd of 17,174, which booed the Ducks off the ice after the first period, became restless again.

After all, they had never seen a hat trick by an opponent at The Pond, let alone a four-goal game. Pavel Bure of the Vancouver Canucks is the only other player to record a hat trick against the Ducks (last April 11 at Vancouver).

That a San Jose Shark accomplished a four-goal game against anyone was perhaps most shocking of all. The Sharks went into Tuesday with the fewest wins (six) in the NHL and averaged less than three goals per game.

But this was the sort of performance the Sharks had been hoping for from Nolan, acquired from the Colorado Avalanche Oct. 26 in a trade for defenseman Sandis Ozolinsh.

“It’s funny how you can go out and have the best game of your life and never score a goal,” Nolan said. “Some nights everything you throw at the net goes in.”