Kings fall short against Sharks 2-1

Ryan Donato scored the tiebreaking goal early in the third period, Martin Jones delivered one of his best performances in net all season and the San Jose Sharks beat the L.A. Kings 2-1 on Monday night.

“It’s huge. We’ve had some games where we left some points on the table,” Donato said. “Tonight we didn’t want to have that continue. Obviously there’s things we need to do a little better but I thought we played overall a good game.”

Donato scored shortly after San Jose killed off its fifth penalty in as many chances. He skated around the Los Angeles net and sent in a backhand shot that hit defenseman Kurtis MacDermid and eluded Jonathan Quick to give the Sharks a 2-1 lead.

Both goals for San Jose went in off the unlucky MacDermid.

“We didn’t give up much,” coach Todd McLellan said. “Both their goals were off one of our players. Sometimes it’s not your night. We put in a good effort.”

Logan Couture also scored and Jones made 41 saves as the Sharks snapped a season-high four-game losing streak.

Matt Roy scored his first goal of the season and Quick made 21 saves for the Kings.

Los Angeles was unable to build on Sunday’s encouraging 3-1 win over Vegas and hasn’t won consecutive games since a six-game winning streak was stopped Feb. 26.

The Kings came close to tying it but Jones made two strong stops in the third period against Alex Iafallo.

Los Angeles then nearly scored in the closing seconds during a scramble in front but couldn’t get one past Jones, who denied Iafallo again right at the buzzer.

“He’s square to every shot right now. He’s in that zone. Everything he’s seeing, he’s stopping,“ Couture said. “He’s confident. He looks good in the net. We gave up a few too many chances but he made some big-time saves for us.”