Sharks rally late, beat Utah in OT for 1st win of season
The San Jose Sharks won their first game of the season in dramatic fashion on Monday, scoring four unanswered goals to defeat the Utah Hockey Club in overtime.
Alex Wennberg played the role of OT hero.
Fabian Zetterlund, Mikael Granlund, and Tyler Toffoli bagged goals 1:50 apart in the final five minutes of regulation to force overtime.
The Sharks are now 1-7-2 on the campaign. They became the first team in NHL history to begin consecutive seasons with at least nine straight losses. The victory also marks the first career NHL win for Ryan Warsofsky, San Jose's rookie head coach.
"Look, I didn't really do much," Warsofsky said, per San Jose Hockey Now's Sheng Peng. "The players, credit to them. They stuck with it. There was times we did some really, really good things and just didn't get rewarded for it. But we stuck with it. We just kept playing. And that's going to be our mindset. We're never going to give up."
Utah coach Andre Tourigny provided a harsh assessment after blowing a lead to the NHL's last-place club.
"We need to own it, and the leadership needs to own it as well," Tourigny said, according to Ryan Miller of KSL.com. "What happened there, it's unacceptable - it's embarrassing."
Utah is 4-4-2 on the season after the loss.