Sharks Erase Two-Goal Deficit, Will Smith's Pair Sparks 3-2 Comeback Win

Final score: San Jose 3, Vancouver 2. What decided this one was simple — the Sharks played their best hockey when it mattered most, scoring three times in a span of under three minutes in the third period after getting outplayed for 40 minutes. That's the kind of response you draw up on the whiteboard but rarely see actually happen. This group delivered it.

Let's walk through how it unfolded, because the game tape tells two different stories. Through two periods, Vancouver controlled the pace. Drew O'Connor opened the scoring late in the first off a rebound off an Elias Pettersson shot, and Liam Ohgren made it 2-0 in the final minute of the second with a wrist shot off a Filip Hronek assist. San Jose was getting out-chanced and the building was getting quiet.

Then the third period happened. At 8:00, Will Smith buried a power-play wrist shot — Dmitry Orlov and Mason Marchment picking up helpers — to make it 2-1. Less than three minutes later, Smith struck again, this time with Macklin Celebrini and Michael Kesselring assisting, to tie it 2-2. And just 11 seconds after that, off the ensuing faceoff, Marchment fired a wrist shot from the wing past Leevi Merilainen to give San Jose the lead for good. Three goals, 2:50 of game clock. That's a knockout combination, not a jab.

Will Smith was the first star with two goals on the night, and at 21 years old in his 157th career game, that's the kind of production you want to see trending the right way. Marchment chipped in a goal and an assist for the second star nod, and Celebrini's primary assist on Smith's second goal keeps him humming along too — 20 years old, 164 games in, still finding ways to contribute even on a quiet box-score night for him personally. Pettersson earned the third star for Vancouver with an assist, but it wasn't enough.

In net, Yaroslav Askarov stopped 23 of 25 for a .920 save percentage — not a flashy night, but he held the fort long enough for his offense to find its legs. On the other side, Merilainen finished at .875 on 24 shots against, and the three third-period goals against will sting more than the raw save count suggests.

Here's your teaching point for the night: special teams swung this game. San Jose went 1-for-5 on the power play, and that lone conversion was the goal that started the whole comeback. Vancouver, meanwhile, went 0-for-3 with the man advantage. When you're generating quality power-play looks and the other team isn't finishing theirs, that's often the hidden stat line behind a third-period surge like this one. The Sharks also won the hit battle convincingly, 27 to 17, which tells you they were the harder team to play against as the game wore on — exactly when you want that identity to show up.

Giveaways were close (18 for San Jose, 20 for Vancouver) and faceoffs were nearly a wash too, so this wasn't a game decided by puck management or the dot. It was decided by execution when the opportunities came, and credit to this group for not folding after two periods of chasing the game.

San Jose improves to 7-6-1 overall and 3-3-0 at home. Up next: the Sharks host the Ottawa Senators on Saturday at 4 p.m. ET.