Sharks beat Los Angeles Kings to take 3-1 series lead

Looking for the first time this series like the team with the NHL's best record over the final three months of the season, the Sharks skated to a 6-3 victory over the Los Angeles Kings on Thursday night to move within one victory of advancing to the second round of the Stanley Cup playoffs.
Led by Ryane Clowe's two goals and single tallies from Joe Thornton, Joe Pavelski, Torrey Mitchell and Jason Demers, San Jose headed home after sweeping two games at Staples Center to take a commanding 3-1 series lead with Game 5 set for Saturday night at HP Pavilion.
And goalie Antti Niemi repaid coach Todd McLellan's vote of confidence after a poor outing two nights earlier by stopping 35 of 38 shots.
"He's recovered well from poor games in the past, and we really believe in this guy," McLellan said before the game in explaining his reason to stick with Niemi as the starting goalie. "It's pretty simple."
The first period was scoreless, but the Sharks jumped on Los Angeles for three consecutive goals over a span of 5:30 in the second. And at that point the Kings decided that they, too, could come back from a significant deficit, though their effort fell short.
The Sharks took a 1-0 lead at 3:58 when Dustin Brown whiffed on a pass from behind the Sharks' goal line, and Marc-Edouard Vlasic scooped up the puck and headed down the ice. Clowe eventually sent a centering pass from
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below the right faceoff circle, and the puck went into the net off the stick of Los Angeles defenseman Alec Martinez.

Seventy-four seconds later the Sharks led 2-0 when Martinez blocked a shot by Logan Couture, who slid it to Demers as he pinched down the left side and beat Jonathan Quick with a 10-foot wrist shot.
The Kings looked as if they might kill off a four-minute penalty to defenseman Matt Greene for high-sticking Scott Nichol, but Clowe got his second goal of the night at 9:28 when his stick touched Couture's shot from the slot that trickled through Quick toward the goal line.
At that point Kings coach Terry Murray called a timeout and whatever he said seemed to work as 1:32 later Ryan Smyth fired a shot from the left sideboards that Niemi got his glove on. The puck rolled across the goal mouth, however, and Brad Richardson was able to poke it into the net before Niemi could block the short side.
Los Angeles narrowed the gap to 3-2 at 16:04, and this time it was a Sharks defenseman putting the puck in his own net as Vlasic tried to keep a centering pass from Justin Williams from reaching Smyth.
But any hopes the Kings had of catching the Sharks as they were caught two nights before were dealt a serious blow when San Jose scored twice early in the third period.
The first came when Thornton somehow cruised into the slot undetected during a line change and converted a pass from Patrick Marleau at 2:28 to give the Sharks a 4-2 lead.
And 54 seconds later, Dan Boyle sent the puck from the right point to Pavelski in the high slot, and he redirected it past Quick to restore San Jose's original three-goal lead that grew to four when a shot from the point deflected to Mitchell at the right of the crease and he scooped it into net at 11:42.
Alexei Ponikarovsky's deflection of a shot by Kings defenseman Jack Johnson ended the scoring at 13:11.
The Sharks didn't make things easy on themselves, however, taking a pair of penalties to Dany Heatley and Boyle late in the game that gave the Kings a five-on-three advantage for almost two of the last three minutes.