The San Jose Sharks ended a month’s worth of frustration on Thursday as Will Smith scored at the 1:37 mark of overtime to give his team a thrilling 6-5 win over the New York Rangers at Madison Square Garden.
Macklin Celebrini recorded his second career NHL hat trick and matched a career-high with five points, making a key play on Smith’s overtime winner, which set off a wild celebration for the previously winless Sharks (1-4-2).
On the winning goal, Celebrini stole the puck from defensemen Braden Schneider in the corner to the left of the Rangers, took a stride, and fed Smith with a cross-ice pass for a one-timer that beat goalie Igor Shesterkin.
Smith’s first goal of the game, and his season, came in the third period, right after a Sharks power play had expired. Immediately after a William Eklund shot attempt from close range, Smith controlled the loose puck and scored with 13:29 left in regulation time to give the Sharks a 5-4 lead.
Taylor Raddysh completed his own hat-trick with 8:10 left to go in the third period to tie the game 5-5. Still, Celebrini wasn’t going to be denied, as he scored twice in the first period and completed the hat trick with 8.3 seconds left in the second, taking a pass from Smith and beating Shesterkin to tie the game 4-4.
Shesterkin came into the game with the league’s best save percentage (.957) and goals-against average (1.17).
Celebrini’s first career hat trick came at the end of his rookie season on April 9 against the Minnesota Wild. He also had two assists in that game in an 8-7 loss to the host Wild.
With his performance on Thursday, Celebrini, 19, became just the third NHL player in the past 32 years with multiple hat tricks as a teenager.
Center Adam Gaudette also scored for the Sharks, Eklund had three assists, and goalie Alex Nedeljkovic stopped 22 of 27 shots.
The Sharks lost defenseman Nick Leddy to an upper-body injury in the first period. Leddy was injured by a hit from Rangers forward Will Cuylle behind the Sharks’ net at the 3:12 mark and was ruled out before the start of the second period.
The Sharks next play the New Jersey Devils on Friday in the third game of a four-game road trip that ends Sunday in Minnesota.
Thursday’s game began with a bang — in more ways than one.
Gaudette and Celebrini both scored early first-period goals, with Celebrini’s goal at the 6:17 mark giving the Sharks a 2-0 lead. Just before Celebrini’s goal, Sharks winger Ryan Reaves and Rangers forward Matt Rempe renewed acquaintances in a marquee fight between two of the NHL’s true heavyweights.
Reaves, listed at 6-foot-2 and 225 pounds, landed at least two big right hands while Rempe, at 6-foot-9 and 261 pounds, used his longer reach to connect with a few left hands. Rempe ended the right with a few short rights from close range after he and Reaves came together.
Reaves came out of the fight unscathed, but Rempe had to retreat to the Rangers’ dressing room and did not play the rest of the game. Reaves’ big but clean hit on Rangers forward Juuso Parssinen preceded the fight.
Raddysh scored his second of the season at the 14:19 mark of the first period, as his shot toward the net from long range appeared to glance off Sharks defenseman Vincent Desharnais before it got past Nedeljkovic, cutting San Jose’s lead to 2-1.
Celebrini got that goal back, scoring his second of the game with 8.1 seconds left before intermission off assists from Smith and Eklund to give the Sharks a 3-1 lead in what was their best period of the season.
LILJEGREN RETURNS
The Sharks activated defenseman Timothy Liljegren off injured reserve Thursday, a day after Luca Cagnoni was returned to the Barracuda of the AHL. Liljegren was placed on IR on Oct. 16, two days after he sustained an upper-body injury in the Sharks’ 5-1 loss to the Carolina Hurricanes.
Before his injury, Liljegren was averaging 20:14 in ice time in the Sharks’ first three games of the season. Against the Rangers, Liljegren started the game alongside Dmitry Orlov, had three shots on goal and 26:50 in ice time to lead all Sharks skaters.
The Sharks kept the same forward lines for Thursday’s game that they had in Tuesday’s 4-3 loss to the New York Islanders. The Sharks badly out-chanced the Islanders during 5-on-5 play but allowed two power play goals and a second period goal, the game-winner, at even strength to rookie defenseman Matthew Schaefer as they fell to 0-4-2 on the season.
DICKINSON SITS
To make room in the lineup for Liljegren, rookie defenseman Sam Dickinson was a healthy scratch on Thursday for the first time since the Sharks’ season-opener on Oct. 9 against the Vegas Golden Knights. In five games this season, Dickinson had six shots on net, had a -4 rating, and was averaging 14:18 in ice time per game.
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