Sharks Stay in Playoff Hunt

San Jose shook off three previous winless games against Minnesota and defeated the Wild, 5-1, Saturday night at St. Paul, Minn.

The Sharks, who are in the midst of a five-game trip, are still in danger of missing the postseason, but they kept their late drive going.

Jonathan Cheechoo scored two goals, including his team-record 45th, and Joe Thornton had three assists for the Sharks, who are 7-1-2 in their last 10 games and in 10th place in the Western Conference. Vesa Toskala, who has helped the Sharks earn at least one point in 18 of his last 19 starts, stopped 24 shots.

“This was a huge win for us,” defenseman Tom Preissing said. “Earlier in the year we hadn’t played these guys very well. We are treating every game like it’s a playoff game right now and each point is important.”

The Wild has lost five games in a row.

“We’re just a fragile team right now,” Wild forward Wes Walz said. “It seems like when we have a little bit of adversity, when something goes wrong, you can feel it on the bench, it kind of sinks.”

Colorado 3, St. Louis 2 -- Joe Sakic scored a power-play goal 57 seconds into overtime at St. Louis.

With Christian Backman in the penalty box, Sakic one-timed Rob Blake’s pass past Patrick Lalime for his 28th goal. Sakic has six goals and five assists in his last six games.

The Avalanche trails Calgary by one point for the Northwest Division lead.

Tampa Bay 4, New York Rangers 3 -- Brad Richards scored the only goal in a shootout and John Grahame stopped three shots in the tiebreaker to lift the Lightning at Tampa, Fla.

The Lightning is 4-0-1 in the last five games. The Rangers, who are tied atop the Atlantic Division with Philadelphia, lost in a shootout for the second consecutive game.

Jaromir Jagr, the NHL leader in goals and points, scored his 51st goal in the second period to move past Vic Hadfield (1971-72) into second place on the Rangers’ season goal-scoring list.

Philadelphia 6, Ottawa 3 -- The Flyers scored four goals in the first period at Philadelphia and Antero Niittymaki made the early spurt stand with 33 saves.

The Flyers have helped their playoff push with four consecutive victories.

The Flyers finished 3-1 this season against the Senators, the first time since 1997-98 they won three games against Ottawa.

Washington 3, Carolina 1 -- Rookie Alexander Ovechkin scored his 47th goal, Matt Pettinger had a short-handed score and the visiting Capitals ended an eight-game losing streak.

It was Pettinger’s fifth goal with his team down a man, tying him for the best in the NHL.

Montreal 6, Toronto 2 -- Radek Bonk and Michael Ryder each scored twice and Cristobal Huet made 26 saves at Montreal, and the Canadiens completed a sweep of their two-game home set against the Maple Leafs.

Andrei Markov and Garth Murray also scored for Montreal, which moved one point ahead of Atlanta into eighth place in the Eastern Conference with 77 points.

New York Islanders 5, Atlanta 1 -- Miroslav Satan had a goal and two assists at Uniondale, N.Y., and Rick DiPietro earned his career-best 27th win by making 22 saves.

Ilya Kovalchuk scored his 45th goal for Atlanta, which had won three games in a row.

Boston 5, Buffalo 4 -- Marco Sturm scored late in the third period, Brad Boyes had a goal and two assists and the host Bruins ended a three-game losing streak hours after general manager Mike O’Connell was fired.

The Bruins defeated the Sabres for the first time since March 13, 2004.

Columbus 5, Detroit 4 -- Jaroslav Balastik capped a Blue Jacket rally with the only goal of a shootout at Detroit.

Columbus scored four times in the third period.

Edmonton 3, Vancouver 2 -- Steve Staios’ third-period goal at Vancouver, Canada, helped the Oilers salvage the final game of the three-game series the teams played this week.