Ducks fall 2-1 to the Sharks in a shootout

Joonas Donskoi scored the deciding goal in the sixth round of the shootout and the San Jose Sharks rallied for their season-high fourth consecutive win by beating the Anaheim Ducks 2-1 on Saturday night.

Joel Ward tied the score midway through the third period, setting the stage for the shootout that kept the Sharks perfect through three games of this homestand. Martin Jones made 25 saves to win for the seventh time in eight starts.

Corey Perry scored to highlight his 900th career game but it wasn’t enough to prevent the Ducks from losing their third straight game.

Ryan Miller made 44 saves, but couldn’t stop Donskoi’s nifty stickhandling move in the shootout. Jones then sealed the game when he stopped Brandon Montour.

This game followed the pattern of the previous meetings between the California rivals. This marked the ninth straight game between the teams decided by one goal or in a shootout with neither scoring more than three goals in any of those contests. San Jose has now won three of those.

The Sharks tied the game midway through the third period. The play started when Ward and Barclay Goodrow went in short-handed on a 2-on-1 rush. Ward passed to Goodrow, whose shot was stopped by Miller. But Ward was there to knock the rebound into the open net just one second after Dylan DeMelo got out of the box.

There were chances in the second period when there were a combined 31 shots on goal, but neither team managed to get a puck past the goalie. Miller made a strong save on a rebound attempt by Chris Tierney midway through the period and then stopped him again from in close late in the second to preserve a 1-0 lead.

Jones made sure San Jose didn’t get into a deeper hole when he robbed Jakob Silfverberg twice late after a bad giveaway in the defensive zone by Justin Braun.

The Ducks, playing the second half of a back-to-back, struck first when Perry got past defenseman Brenden Dillon for a breakaway off a nice feed from Derek Grant and beat Jones less than seven minutes into the game.