Canucks manage to sneak past Sharks

Cory Schneider made 44 saves and stopped all three San Jose attempts in the shootout, and Alexandre Burrows scored in the second round of the tiebreaker in the Vancouver Canucks' wild 5-4 victory over the Sharks on Thursday night.

Burrows, who also scored Vancouver's first goal of the game, backhanded the puck past Antti Niemi's glove, atoning for a holding-the-stick penalty late in regulation that led to Ryan Clowe's tying goal for San Joser.

The teams combined for three goals in the final 2:13 of regulation, with Clowe tying it on a power play with 21 seconds left and Niemi off for an extra attacker.

Clowe also scored in the second period.

Daniel Sedin had a power-play goal with 1:49 left and also assisted on Burrows' goal in NHL-leading Vancouver's fourth straight victory — all on the road. Sedin has 35 goals and 51 assists for a career-high 86 points in 69 games this season.

Sami Salo and Mason Raymond also scored for the Canucks, who are now 11 points ahead of second-place Detroit in the Western Conference and 12 ahead of third-place San Jose.

Torrey Mitchell tied it at 3-3 for San Jose with 2:13 left, splitting a pair of defenders and flicking the puck past Schneider for his first goal since Dec. 16,

Clowe and Devin Setoguchi had second-period goals for the Sharks, who failed to score on an overtime power play.

Schneider stopped Clowe, Kyle Wellwood and Joe Pavelski in the shootout. Niemi, making his 23rd consecutive start, held off Raymond in the first round.

Vancouver beat San Jose for the third time in four games this season, after letting leads of 2-0, 3-2 and 4-3 slip away.

In the first period, Burrows outdueled San Jose's Dany Heatley in front of the Sharks' net, took a pass from Sedin and fired the puck past Niemi with 6:35 left. Henrik Sedin also had an assist on the play.

Salo made it 2-0 on a power play with 1:34 left in the first.

San Jose then scored twice in a 1:07 span.

Setoguchi knocked his own deflection past Schneider less than a minute into the second period and Clowe followed that up with his 20th of the season. Pavelski nearly added a third 40 seconds after, that but the puck hit the left post and bounced away.

NOTES: Joe Thornton's assist on Setoguchi's goal was his 400th with San Jose. ... Play was stopped briefly in the first period when the arena clock went from 5.2 seconds left to 5:02. ... San Jose defenseman Dan Boyle (upper body) sat out his sixth straight game.