The San Jose Sharks finally played with the necessary amount of urgency on Monday as they faced elimination from playoff contention.

Igor Chernyshov scored a first-period power-play goal, and Macklin Celebrini scored twice in the third period as the Sharks beat the Nashville Predators 3-2 at Bridgestone Arena to momentarily stay alive for the second wild-card spot in the Western Conference.

Those playoff hopes were dashed late Monday, though, as the Los Angeles Kings beat the Seattle Kraken 5-3 to clinch their own postseason berth. Los Angeles, with 89 points, is five points up on San Jose, with both teams having two games left to play.

Still, with their win on Monday, the Sharks now have 84 points, 32 more than they had last season when they were the NHL’s last-place team.

“It’s a close group,” Sharks coach Ryan Warsofsky said. “They all get along really well, and I know we’re going to fight to the end. We’re gonna keep playing and keep competing for one another. You’ve got to have some pride. We did that tonight.”

Goalie Alex Nedeljkovic finished with 25 saves, including 10 in the third period, as the Sharks snapped a three-game losing streak and beat the Predators for the first time in over six seasons.

Since a 2-1 shootout win over Nashville on Nov. 9, 2019, the Sharks had lost their last 15 games to the Predators, including two losses in the last three weeks.

Celebrini’s two goals gave him 44 on the season. Now with 112 points, Celebrini is points behind Joe Thornton’s single-season record of 114 set in 2006-07.

The Sharks entered Monday having lost four of their last five games, leaving their playoff hopes barely intact. The Sharks lost 6-3 to the Predators on April 4, 5-2 to the Edmonton Oilers last Wednesday, and 6-1 to the Anaheim Ducks the next night.

The Sharks enter their final two games of the season in 10th place in the Western Conference and in fifth place in the Pacific Division. The Sharks (38-24-8) play road games against the Chicago Blackhawks on Wednesday and the Winnipeg Jets on Thursday.

Passing the Kings and the Predators to make the playoffs for the first time since 2019 was unlikely at best for the Sharks, with moneypuck.com pegging their chances at threading that needle before Monday at 0.2%.

Besides that, the Sharks hadn’t been playing very good hockey in recent days, going just 1-3-1 since beating the Toronto Maple Leafs on April 2. In that time, the Sharks were outscored 23-12 and were 1-for-11 on the power play.

That was one of the reasons why defenseman Luca Cagnoni was recalled from the Barracuda on Sunday and played his seventh career NHL game on Monday.

Cagnoni started the game on the third pair alongside Vincent Desharnais and also played the point on the Sharks’ top power play unit with Celebrini, Will Smith, Alex Wennberg, and Tyler Toffoli. Cagnoni had a breakaway chance in the first period, stopped by Predators goalie Justus Annunen, and rang a shot off the post on a Sharks power play in the second.

“He was good,” Warsofsky said of Cagnoni. “Moved some pucks. Did a lot of good things.”

Cagnoni, the Barracuda’s top-scoring defenseman this season with 43 points in 67 games, had one shot, two blocks, and two hits in 14:53 of ice time against the Predators.

“I feel like we had a really good team with the ‘Cuda down there,” Cagnoni told the Sharks Audio Network before Monday’s game. “We’ve been pretty strong throughout the year. Individually, just trying to find that balance of being really good offensively and defensively.

“Try and learn that was and then just drive (offense). They want me to do more 5-on-5 this year. I think I’ve done a pretty good job of that.”