Sharks 3, Red Wings 1
Dany Heatley tallied twice and Antti Niemi turned aside 26 shots as the San Jose Sharks skated to their eighth straight victory with a 3-1 home triumph over the Detroit Red Wings on Thursday in a battle of division leaders.
Patrick Marleau collected a goal and an assist for Pacific Division-leading San Jose (38-21-6), which improved to 17-2-1 in its last 20 games and pulled to within three points of the Central Division-leading Red Wings (39-19-7) in the Western Conference standings.
After Heatley opened the scoring at 3:51 of the first period for his first goal in six games, the 30-year-old then redirected a feed by Joe Pavelski for a power-play tally at 3:54 of the second to give the Sharks a 2-1 lead.
Niemi did the rest from there to improve to 5-1-1 in seven career outings against the Red Wings.
Tomas Holmstrom netted a power-play goal for Detroit, which has dropped two in a row after winning six straight on the road.
Playing in place of traditional workhorse Jimmy Howard, Joey MacDonald finished with 25 saves in this one.