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GLENDALE, Ariz. -- Defenseman Oliver Ekman-Larsson scored twice and had an assist, leading the Arizona Coyotes to a 5-3 win against the San Jose Sharks Saturday at Gila River Arena.
The loss to the last-place team in the Western Conference left the Sharks (39-31-9) five points behind the Winnipeg Jets for the second wild card into the Stanley Cup Playoffs from the West. San Jose has three games remaining.
Ekman-Larsson leads all NHL defensemen with 23 goals, and he tied Phil Housley's franchise record. Housley had 23 goals in both the 1990-91 and 1991-92 seasons for the Winnipeg Jets before they moved to Arizona in 1996.
Mike Smith made 42 saves for the Coyotes (24-47-8) and is 8-2-2 in his past 12 games against San Jose. Mark Arcobello also scored for Arizona and Sam Gagner hit the empty net with 10.7 seconds left.
Shane Doan added a goal and two assists for the Coyotes, who won in regulation at home for the first time since a 4-1 victory against the Jets on Jan. 8. They had been 1-15-2 at Gila River Arena since.
Doan's three points leaves him two shy of 900 in his career.
Tomas Hertl, Joe Thornton and Chris Tierney scored for the Sharks, who are facing the prospect of missing the playoffs for the first time in 11 seasons. Only the Detroit Red Wings (23 straight seasons) have a longer active streak of reaching the playoffs.
San Jose goalie Antti Niemi made 28 saves.
All three goals in the first period came on the power play, and the Coyotes overcame a sluggish start thanks to their special teams.
With Karl Stollery in the penalty box for hooking Tobias Rieder, Ekman-Larsson took a crisp cross-ice pass from Arcobello at the left point, waited for David Moss to set a screen in the slot and picked the far corner at 11:59. It was Ekman-Larsson's 10th power-play goal this season, which also leads all NHL defensemen.
The Sharks got even after Ekman-Larsson took down San Jose's Tommy Wingels and was called for interference. Hertl deflected Taylor Fedun's shot from the point but Smith kicked it out. However, Hertl chased down the rebound, carried the puck to the right circle and flipped a backhand past Smith at 16:36 for his 13th goal.
But San Jose's Barclay Goodrow went off for tripping at 17:50, and the Coyotes capitalized. Doan got a stick on Michael Stone's shot from the point; the deflection hit the post and bounced back through Niemi's legs before the goalie inadvertently kicked the puck into the net at 18:37.
Doan's 14th goal of the season was his 368th as a Coyote, leaving him 11 shy of Dale Hawerchuk's franchise record.
Smith was the story of the second period. He made number of acrobatic stops among his 13 saves, including a Joe Pavelski deflection, a Patrick Marleau wraparound and Tierney's redirect.
Ekman-Larsson made it 3-1 at 17:46 when he picked up his own rebound with Niemi down and out and wristed it into the wide-open net.
But the two-goal lead lasted all of 19 seconds. Thornton's tough-angled shot from the left corner near the goal line somehow went behind Smith's head and off the far post at 18:05 to bring the Sharks back to 3-2. It was Thornton's 15th goal but his first in 10 games.
The Coyotes regained their two-goal lead 5:30 into the third period when Doan found Arcobello charging down the slot for a wrist shot over Niemi's glove and under the crossbar. It was Arcobello's 17th goal of the year and his ninth in 24 games with Arizona. He has scored a goal in each of Arizona's three games against San Jose since joining the Coyotes.
Once again, the Sharks answered almost immediately. With Stone in the penalty box, Tierney got a stick on Matt Irwin's power-play shot and deflected it past Smith at 6:48. Tierney scored his sixth goal of the season and fourth in the past seven games.
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