SAN JOSE, Calif. – Goalie James Reimer made 19 saves and forward Nick Bonino extended his goal-scoring streak to four games as the Sharks held on for a 3-2 win over the Arizona Coyotes on Tuesday at SAP Center.
Tomas Hertl and Nico Sturm also scored for the Sharks, who outshot the Coyotes 27-13 through two periods en route to just their third win of the season on home ice.
Arizona largely dominated the third period and made it 3-2 with Nick Bjugstad’s goal at the 2:56 mark. But the Sharks did just enough to hold on, capturing consecutive games for the first time since they won three in a row from Nov. 11-15.
The Sharks were coming off a 6-1 road victory over the Anaheim Ducks last Friday and now have a 3-8-5 record at the Shark Tank this season.
The Sharks killed four of five penalties for the game, including a tripping penalty on Hertl midway through the third period.
Radim Simek and Scott Harrington each added two assists for San Jose (10-16-5).
It was Harrington’s third two-point game of his NHL career and Simek’s second. Simek’s only other two-point game came on Dec. 18, 2018, as he had two assists in a 4-0 Sharks win over the Minnesota Wild.
The Sharks, though, saw another player get injured Tuesday as forward Luke Kunin left the game early in the first period and didn’t return.
On his first shift, it appeared that Kunin went in for a check on Patrik Nemeth in the Coyotes’ zone and only partially hit him before he landed hard against the boards. He left the ice shortly afterward and the Sharks announced at the start of the second period Tuesday that he would not return.
Kunin, before Tuesday, had 13 points in 30 games for the Sharks this season, averaging just under 16 minutes of ice time per game.
The Sharks are already without forward Matt Nieto and defenseman Mario Ferraro, who are both on injured reserve with lower body ailments. Alexander Barabanov, questionable to play Tuesday with his own lower-body injury, was scratched from the game.
Hertl’s goal, his 10th of the season, came off a tip as he redirected a Simek shot past Coyotes goalie Karel Vejmelka at the 3:50 mark of the first period for a 1-0 Sharks lead.
Bonino’s goal came just 62 seconds later, as he pounced on a rebound in front of the Coyotes’ net after an Erik Karlsson shot and beat Vejmelka from in close. Bonino didn’t have a goal after 24 games but scored against Buffalo, Vancouver, and Anaheim.
Reimer’s last game before Tuesday was a 5-2 home loss to the Kings on Nov. 25, when he allowed four goals on 28 shots. In the last seven games before Tuesday without Reimer, the Sharks went 2-3-2 with an average of 3.57 goals allowed per game, the 10th-worst in the league.
“I’ve been feeling good for last couple of days now, where I’ve been going hard and there have been no setbacks,” Reimer said Tuesday morning, a day after he was activated off of injured reserve. “Unfortunately, I tried to come back a couple of times and the body said no, but it’s been good for a couple of days.”
