Eighteen Ottawa shots arrived in the second period, and Yaroslav Askarov stopped every one. San Jose, meanwhile, needed 11 shots to score three times and turn a 1-1 game into a 4-1 lead. The sequence captures the San Jose Sharks’ 6-2 victory over the Senators on Thursday: a first regulation win built more on finishing and goaltending than territorial command.
The middle period tilted toward Ottawa in shots and toward San Jose on the scoreboard. Tyler Toffoli’s power-play goal at 9:13 put the Sharks ahead. At 12:00, Collin Graf scored short-handed. Jacob Trouba followed at 13:18. Three San Jose goals in just over four minutes changed the game, yet Askarov was the player preventing Ottawa from answering immediately.
That is what a six-goal total can conceal. San Jose did not create a comfortable night by keeping the puck away from danger. Ottawa kept directing shots toward the net, and Askarov kept the lead intact long enough for the Sharks’ brief offensive burst to become decisive. His second period was not decorative support for a winning attack; it was the platform under it.
The full shot ledger makes the imbalance plain. Ottawa finished with 43 shots on goal to San Jose’s 28. The Senators held an 18-11 advantage in the second period and a 17-6 edge in the third.
Those numbers do not describe the quality of every chance, and they cannot by themselves explain every possession sequence. They do establish the basic shape of the game: San Jose scored efficiently while Ottawa supplied far more of the visible workload.
The third period made the eventual four-goal margin look far from settled. Jordan Spence scored at 6:24 to cut Ottawa’s deficit to 4-2. The Senators continued producing shots, but Askarov stopped 16 of 17 in the period. San Jose did not answer that push by suddenly owning the ice. It answered by keeping Ottawa from scoring again after Spence.
Then came the two empty-net finishes. Zack Ostapchuk scored short-handed at 16:31, and Ivar Stenberg added an even-strength goal at 19:43. Both were important because they closed off any realistic late recovery and turned a two-goal game into a 6-2 result.
They also need the correct label. Neither was a conventional attack against a set, fully manned Ottawa net, so neither says much about San Jose overcoming the Senators’ shot advantage.
Special teams supplied another reason the score moved faster than the shot count. The Sharks went 1 for 2 on the power play, with Toffoli’s goal arriving during the second-period burst. Graf’s short-handed finish added offense while San Jose was down a skater.
Those conversions were genuine execution points in a game where ordinary territorial control was difficult to claim. They became decisive because Askarov handled the attempts Ottawa generated while San Jose was taking its opportunities.
The Sharks also blocked 17 shots, a meaningful part of their defensive resistance. But blocked shots are not possession, and they do not turn Ottawa’s 43 shots on goal into San Jose control. The visitors spent much of the night making uncomfortable stretches survivable. The blocks reduced the attempts that reached the net. They still left Askarov with an extensive workload to complete.