Canucks edge Sharks 4-3 in overtime

VANCOUVER - The Sharks lost the game and top-scorer Logan Couture for the last 14:48 of the third period and overtime.

After picking up a crucial Pacific Division win in Calgary Thursday, the Sharks (17-10-4) came out flat against a hungry Vancouver Canucks squad that had lost four consecutive games, leading to a 4-3 overtime loss.

Sam Gagner won the game for the Canucks by scoring off a breakaway with 25.7 seconds left in overtime.

In addition to losing the game, the Sharks lost Logan Couture at 5:12 of the third after he took a hit to the jaw area from Canucks forward Alexander Burmistrov. It’s quite possible that Couture left the game to undergo the NHL’s concussion protocol as he skated off the ice lightly.

Couture leads the Sharks in goals (15) and points (25) this season.

Brent Burns tied the game at 3-3 with 5:49 left in the third, scoring his second goal of the contest and his fifth in five games as the Sharks earned a point by erasing a two-goal deficit for the third time in five games.

Burns, who scored just one goal in the Sharks’ first 26 games, recorded his tally off a blast from the right point through traffic.

Marcus Sorensen made it a 3-2 game with 1:44 left in the second, scoring his first goal of the season off the rush as Justin Braun and Jannik Hansen picked up the assists.

Sorensen’s only other NHL goal came against the Canucks on March 2.

Unlike the Sharks, the Canucks (15-14-4) are at risk of falling out of the playoff race after going 0-4 and losing by a combined score of 20-5 since Bo Horvat went down with a foot injury on Dec. 5.

The Canucks got completely humiliated in their last game, losing 7-1 to the Nashville Predators in their own barn. They came out with fire Friday, producing the game’s first 10 shots and scoring the opening goal just 44 seconds into the game.

Markus Granlund scored on a Canucks power play from the doorstep after Brenden Dillon took a cross-checking penalty 15 seconds into the game.

Granlund scored the Canucks’ second goal at 14:27 of the first, firing in a shot from the slot with help from Henrik and Daniel Sedin.

Burns got the Sharks on the board in between Granlund’s tallies, scoring his fifth goal of the year on a Sharks power play at 10:45 of the opening stanza.

After the Sharks stormed out of the gates in the second by recording seven of the period’s first eight shots, Brock Boesner made it a 3-1 game by going top corner from the lower-left circle for his 17th of the season.

NOTES

Friday’s game marked the first meeting between the Sharks and former-first round pick Nikolay Goldobin (2014), who was traded to the Canucks for Hansen at the trade deadline last winter.

Goldobin, who’s suited up for six games this season, is running into the same criticism in Vancouver that he faced in San Jose. No one can question the 22-year-old Russian forward’s skill with the puck, but his compete level, work ethic and three-zone play wavered through his two seasons with the AHL Barracuda.

Earlier this week, Canucks coach Travis Green told the Vancouver Province that Goldobin’s “opinions of working and mine are sometimes different.”

Suffice it to say, it’s clear that Goldobin’s 200-foot game is still a project and he wasn’t going to be an immediate fit with the Sharks, who rank second in goals-against average (2.33) and third in shots against (29.3).