San Jose's Logan Couture returned from an injury to score in overtime and give the Sharks a 2-1 win over the Los Angeles Kings on Saturday, cutting the deficit in their NHL second-round playoff series to 2-1.
Also Saturday, Detroit beat Chicago to square their series at 1-1.
San Jose had suffered a couple of galling defeats in the opening two rounds of the series, but they responded on Saturday in a game they could not afford to lose.
"The transition from being down to, 'Let's get ready to go,' was exceptional," coach Todd McLellan said. "The leaders did a great job. But you always have to take that test. You find out a lot about your team."
Whereas the Kings had received some contentious calls in the opening two games, this time the Sharks were the beneficiaries.
Tommy Wingels drew a hooking penalty on Robyn Regehr with 41.7 seconds left in regulation. But the call that really had the Kings steaming came when Trevor Lewis was called for goaltender interference when he crashed into Antti Niemi with 4.5 seconds remaining.
Los Angeles argued that Patrick Marleau pushed Lewis, and goalie Jonathan Quick got a game misconduct for arguing with the officials after the game.
"I find it very tough to believe that a player as intelligent as Trevor Lewis, that he'd run the goalie," Kings forward Dustin Penner said. "I asked him and he said he got pushed from behind. I'm disappointed that the refs had enough confidence to make a gutsy call like that in the last 30 seconds of the period."
That gave San Jose a 5-on-3 advantage for the first 1:19 of overtime. The Sharks couldn't convert with two extra men, but got the winner when Marleau set up Couture in front, who beat Quick for the game-winner.
"They said we got a break last game, so now they got a break," Kings coach Darryl Sutter said.
Rookie Tyler Toffoli scored the lone goal for the defending Stanley Cup champion Kings, who had won six straight games since dropping the first two in the opening round in St. Louis.
Couture's first career playoff overtime goal came after he missed most of the second period when he limped off the ice favoring his left leg. He returned to an ovation in the final minute of the second and then got the Sharks back into the series in overtime.
"When you see someone leave after stepping on a puck like that, you don't know if he's going to come back or not," Marleau said. "And now he has his stick back in the game. And he scores the overtime winner. It's huge. It's to see him be able to push through that kind of pain."
Meanwhile, Detroit's Damien Brunner and Brendan Smith scored in the second period as the Red Wings beat the Chicago Blackhawks 4-1.
It was a strong response by the Red Wings after Chicago handled them easily in the series opener by the same scoreline.
Just as the Blackhawks did in Game 1, Detroit took control in the second period and put the game away in the third.
"We had more energy," the Red Wings' Henrik Zetterberg said. "We did a lot of the little things better than we did in Game 1 and when we got our chances we were able to put the puck in the net."
Patrick Kane gave Chicago a 1-0 lead late in the first, but the game changed markedly after that.
Brunner tied it when he deflected a wrist shot by Jakub Kindl early in the second, and Smith gave the Red Wings the lead when he scored off a feed from Henrik Zetterberg on a 3-on-1 late in the second.
Johan Franzen made it 3-1 in the third when he fired a rising shot past Crawford after a perfect pass from Jonathan Ericsson in the Detroit zone. And Valtteri Filppula closed out the scoring with 7:57 left in the game.
Sharks beat Kings in overtime to cut deficit
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