Sharks top Hurricanes 5-1

SAN JOSE - Timo Meier had a goal and two assists in his return to San Jose's lineup, Martin Jones made 39 saves and the Sharks bounced back from a rough road trip by beating the Carolina Hurricanes 5-1 on Wednesday night.

Barclay Goodrow and Tomas Hertl got San Jose started with goals in the first period, captain Joe Pavelski added his team-leading 18th in the second period and Marcus Sorensen scored in the third to give the Sharks a convincing victory.

Lucas Wallmark scored on the power play for the Hurricanes, who have scored just five goals in the past five games, losing four of them.

Curtis McElhinney made 18 saves.

The Sharks had been outscored 20-7 in losing the first four games on their recent road trip before salvaging it a bit with a 3-1 win in Montreal.

They built on that momentum against the Hurricanes with Kevin Labanc setting up two goals in the first 10:10 and Jones stopping 17 shots in the first.

Labanc took a bad bounce off the boards to feed Goodrow in front to open the scoring and then made a perfect pass from the boards that deflected off Hertl's stick for a power-play goal midway through the first.

San Jose blew a 2-0 lead at Carolina earlier this season, losing 4-3 in a shootout. But the Sharks managed to build on this advantage in the second. Meier deflected Radim Simek's point shot past McElhinney for his 14th goal of the season. Meier had missed the previous three games with an upper-body injury.

He added an assist on Pavelski's goal, which came when a centering pass was deflected by Carolina's Jordan Staal into his own net.

The Hurricanes managed the power-play goal late in the second, but it wasn't enough with Sorensen adding the insurance goal in the third off a pass from Meier.

Notes

Joe Thornton had three assists for San Jose, leaving him two shy of tying Marcel Dionne for 10th place all-time with 1,040. ... Staal left the game in the third with an upper-body injury. ... Simek had his first career point with the assist on Meier's goal. ... Hurricanes D Brett Pesce returned after missing nine games with a lower-body injury.