{"id":590725,"date":"2026-04-07T06:51:08","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T06:51:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/590725\/"},"modified":"2026-04-07T06:51:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T06:51:08","slug":"sharks-edge-blackhawks-to-gain-in-western-wild-card-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/590725\/","title":{"rendered":"Sharks edge Blackhawks to gain in Western wild-card race"},"content":{"rendered":"

Frank Nazar<\/a> had a goal and an assist, and Ryan Donato<\/a> scored for the Blackhawks (28-36-14), who are 1-5-1 in their past seven games. Spencer Knight<\/a> made 20 saves.<\/p>\n

“We certainly pushed. They are a really good transition team. I thought we gave up too many grade A (chances) in the second. I think we have better in us,” Chicago coach Jeff Blashill said.<\/p>\n

Donato put the Blackhawks up 1-0 at 9:01 of the first period. Nazar one-timed a cross-ice pass from Connor Bedard<\/a> in the left face-off circle and Donato cleaned up the rebound in front just one second after a power play expired. Bedard’s assist was his 200th NHL point (75 goals, 125 assists).<\/p>\n

The Sharks appeared to tie the game 1-1 at 2:02 of the second period on a goal by Michael Misa<\/a>, but the goal was disallowed because it was determined Misa kicked the puck in.<\/p>\n

Eklund did tie it 1-1 at 6:57. After intercepting a pass from Chicago defenseman Wyatt Kaiser<\/a> at the Sharks’ blue line, Eklund raced down the ice on a breakaway and put a wrist shot through the five-hole of Knight.<\/p>\n

“Tried to stay on the puck on the defensive side there,” Eklund said. “They made a play on the blue line, and I was just trying to go, and it went in.”<\/p>\n

Sherwood put San Jose up 2-1 at 14:55. Eklund fed a pass from below the goal line to Sherwood at the top of the right circle, where he dropped to one knee and buried a one-timer into the top left corner.<\/p>\n

Smith pushed the lead to 3-1 at 3:28 of the third period. Macklin Celebrini<\/a> sent the puck to Collin Graf<\/a>\u00a0at the left of the crease, and Graf then placed a behind-the-back backhanded pass to Smith in the slot, where he put a snap shot past Knight. The goal was Smith’s 100th point in the NHL (41 goals, 59 assists).<\/p>\n

“That was a great all-around play. Good forecheck, and then (Celebrini) made a play down to (Graf) and Graf made a great behind-the-back pass to me,” Smith said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Frank Nazar had a goal and an assist, and Ryan Donato scored for the Blackhawks (28-36-14), who are…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":590726,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,575,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-590725","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/590725","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=590725"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/590725\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/590726"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=590725"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=590725"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=590725"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}