Sharks Bite Devils

Patrick Marleau got a second chance and took full advantage of it.

With less than 15 seconds remaining in overtime, Marleau took the puck near center ice and moved towards New Jersey goalie Martin Brodeur. From about 10 feet out, he swiped at the puck but missed.

He tried again quickly, and put it past Brodeur for game-winner with just 5.6 seconds left as the San Jose Sharks beat the Devils 4-3 Sunday night.

"When I got the puck, I looked at the clock and knew there wasn't much time left," Marleau said. "So I had to hustle. I was going to fire the puck pretty hard but ended up missing it. Somehow the puck just laid there. I took another whack at it, and it found its way in."

San Jose tied it 3-3 with 2:05 left in regulation on a short-handed goal. Owen Nolan took a pass from Jeff Friesen, skated down the left side and scored his 15th goal of the season.

"This is a huge win for us," Friesen said. "Things have been tough of late, so we really needed this. Owen is tough guy to stop, and he's really carrying us right now."

A dejected Brodeur said, "This is really tough. It's particularly disappointing because we had a lead late in the game."

"It wasn't luck," New Jersey coach Robbie Ftorek said. "The Sharks made a nifty pass to Nolan, who is a pretty good shooter."

"On the winning goal, the defenseman lost the edge, and Marleau was able to skate around him. Still, we should never have allowed them to score the tying goal with us in a power-play situation."

New Jersey had taken a 3-2 lead 2:43 earlier when Jason Arnott took a pass from Scott Gomez at center ice and beat goalie Steve Shields for his fifth goal of the season.

The Devils opened the scoring when Claude Lemieux scored his seventh goal at 3:51 of the first period. Arnott shot from the left side, and the puck bounced off Lemieux's skate and into the net.

The Sharks tied it at 8:55 of the first period when Marco Sturm's shot from the right side deflected off Brodeur's leg.

San Jose took a 2-1 lead at 1:27 of the second period when Niklas Sundstrom beat a diving Brodeur. But New Jersey tied it again at 12:12 of the second period when Vadim Sharifijanov took a pass from Gomez and scored from 15 feet.

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