Noah Gregor recorded his first career hat trick and Erik Karlsson tied a career high with four assists to lead the San Jose Sharks to a 7-2 win over the Arizona Coyotes on Saturday night in Tempe, Ariz.
Logan Couture had a goal and an assist, and Jacob Peterson, Kyle Criscuolo and Danil Gushchin also scored for the Sharks, who have won three straight games for just the second time this season.
Nico Sturm had two assists and Kaapo Kahkonen made 29 saves for San Jose (22-39-15, 59 points), which will miss the playoffs for the fourth straight season.
The Sharks scored on three of their seven man-advantage opportunities.
J.J. Moser and Milos Kelemen scored for the Coyotes (27-37-13, 67 points), who have dropped seven straight games (0-5-2). Arizona will miss the playoffs for the third straight season.
With the Sharks leading 3-1 after the first period, Gushchin extended the advantage with his first career goal in his NHL debut. He scored on the power play off assists from Karlsson and Jacob MacDonald just 1:41 into the second period.
Gregor scored off Sturm’s assist to make it 5-1 with 12 minutes left in the game.
Couture’s power-play goal off assists from Tomas Hertl and Karlsson pushed the lead to 6-1 just over two minutes later.
After Gregor completed his hat trick off assists from Kevin Labanc and Karlsson at the 14:47 mark, the Coyotes capped the scoring when Kelemen scored the first goal of his career with 4:50 left in the game. Jack McBain and Brett Ritchie assisted on the play.
The Sharks needed just 90 seconds to take a 1-0 lead when Gregor wristed a pass from Sturm past Ivan Prosvetov, who finished with 24 saves.
San Jose doubled its advantage on the power play at the 8:38 mark. After getting the puck from Karlsson, Couture centered a pass to Peterson, who one-timed it from the slot into the back of the net.
Criscuolo made it 3-0 when he scored on a breakaway for his first career goal in his first game as a Shark at the 13:02 mark of the first period.
The Coyotes pulled to within 3-1 on Moser’s power-play goal off assists from Matias Maccelli and Victor Soderstrom with 2:53 left in the period.
–Field Level Media
