Sharks 5, Blue Jackets 3
COLUMBUS, Ohio -- The San Jose Sharks made quite the statement at the end of an impressive road trip.
Down two goals early in the third period, the Sharks scored three times in just over seven minutes to beat the Columbus Blue Jackets 5-3 Sunday in Nationwide Arena.
For the first time in Sharks history, they swept a six-game road trip, one that started nine days earlier in Detroit and wound through Buffalo, Boston, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.
Center Patrick Marleau scored early for the Sharks, but it was a trio of goals -- by center Joe Pavelski, defenseman Brent Burns and defenseman Brenden Dillon -- that energized the San Jose comeback.
Pavelski added an empty-net goal in the dying minutes of the game.
Goaltender Alex Stalock, making a rare start, had 28 saves for his second win of the season.
Sharks coach Peter DeBoer, who missed Saturday's game because of personal reasons, made it to Columbus just in time for faceoff Sunday night.
Center Ryan Johansen, left winger Boone Jenner and right winger Cam Atkinson had goals for the Blue Jackets, while goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky had 24 saves.
The Sharks took a 1-0 lead at 16:27 of the first period on Marleau's seventh goal of the season.
The Sharks veteran, who scored his 1,000th career point Saturday in Pittsburgh, found a loose puck out of a scramble and buried it from close range.
The Blue Jackets were badly outskated and outworked in the first period, prompting coach John Tortorella to change three of the four forward lines. Most notably, he dropped No. 1 center Ryan Johansen to the fourth line with two rookies, left wing Kerby Rychel and right wing Josh Anderson.
The dividends were almost immediate for Columbus.
At 5:30 of the second, Johansen scored out of a scramble -- Rychel and Anderson each had assists -- to make it 1-1.
Only 1:18 later, the Jackets pushed the pace and earned a 2-1 lead off a dazzling three-on-two rush.
Blue Jackets rookie center William Karlsson skated the puck wide through the left circle, then found Jenner on the doorstep next to Stalock for the easy put-in.
The Blue Jackets -- after generating only five shots in the first -- totaled 19 shots in the second, allowing only seven to the Sharks.
The Jackets made it 3-1 early in the third when Atkinson took a nifty feed across the goal mouth from center Nick Foligno.
However, if the Blue Jackets thought the game was over, they were sorely mistaken.
The Sharks pulled to 3-2 on Pavelski's goal at 6:13 of the third, and tied it 3-3 on Burns' power-play goal at 11:25.
Only seven seconds into a power play, Burns dropped to one knee and one-timed a set-up from Sharks right wing Joel Ward.
Then, at 13:15, Dillon gathered the puck and the blue line off a faceoff and scored on a wrister through traffic. It was his first goal in 53 games.
In an otherwise quiet Nationwide Arena, a roar came out of the Sharks' bench.
Pavelski capped it with 1:16 to play when he scored into an empty net.
NOTES: The Blue Jackets lost two defensemen in Friday's win over Nashville. D Cody Goloubef sustained a fractured jaw when he was struck by a puck in the face. He had surgery Saturday and is expected to miss four to six weeks. D Fedor Tyutin broke his nose and is day-to-day. ... The Blue Jackets recalled D Andrew Bodnarchuk from AHL Lake Erie on Saturday. His appearance for Columbus on Sunday was his first in the NHL since April 2010, when he played for the Boston Bruins.