Mario Ferraro and Michael Misa each scored, Kiefer Sherwood tallied two assists, and Yaroslav Askarov made 19 saves for the Sharks (38-35-8), who will finish their season at Winnipeg on Thursday.
“We’ve learned a lot of lessons along the way,” Sharks coach Ryan Warsofsky, whose team was eliminated from the Stanley Cup Playoffs on Monday, said. “This one was a kick in the gut because we should know by now, to be honest with you. We’ve talked enough about momentum shifts in games, and when to simplify, and when to be a mature team and understand that we’ve controlled the game the first two periods, let’s go put zeroes in the third and we win a hockey game. Until we do that, we won’t make another step.”
Ferraro put the Sharks ahead 1-0 at 8:09 of the first period. He got the cross-ice feed from Sherwood on the rush and his wrist shot from the right face-off circle deflected in off Blackhawks defenseman Ethan Del Mastro’s skate.
Ilya Mikheyev was stopped on a penalty shot at 16:22, shortly after he got the Blackhawks’ first shot on goal at 15:50.
Just 43 seconds into the second period, Tyler Toffoli looked to put the Sharks up 2-0 but the play was challenged and successfully overturned for offside.
Misa gave the Sharks a 2-0 lead with a power-play goal at 5:17. Misa worked the puck along the goal line and attempted to put it in in front, with the puck again deflecting off of Del Mastro and sliding over the goal line.
“I’ve been kind of waiting for it,” Misa, who scored for the first time in 15 games since March 15 against the Ottawa Senators, said. “It finally kind of went in there for me.
“It was definitely tough to not make the playoffs there. With the group we had, I thought we could definitely make it in there. Now that we didn’t, we can try to focus on these last two games. We’ve got one more left, so try to win it.”
The Blackhawks’ five-goal rally started with Sam Rinzel, who brought the Blackhawks to within 2-1 at 19:30. Ryan Donato skated the puck down the center and lost it, with Rinzel jumping on it and putting it through Askarov’s five-hole.