charge of the goal horn off guard, already trying to start the celebration.“It wasn’t even close,” Hellebuyck said. “That’s kind of rude.”Arvidsson got his sixth goal in five games at 11:57 of the period with

SAN JOSE www.officialknightsproshop.com , Calif. (AP) — Timo Meier’s return to San Jose’s lineup gave the Sharks just the boost they needed after a rough road trip.Meier had a goal and two assists in his first game back from an injury, Martin Jones made 39 saves and the Sharks responded to a shuffle of duties for their assistant coaches by beating the Carolina Hurricanes 5-1 on Wednesday night.“It felt great,” Meier said. “You don’t want to be sitting out watching games with an injury. For me it was important to get healthy. Obviously I was really excited to keep playing again. I had a lot of energy today and we played a great game overall.”Barclay Goodrow and Tomas Hertl got San Jose started with goals in the first period, captain Joe Pavelski added his team-leading 18th in the second period and Marcus Sorensen scored in the third to give the Sharks a convincing victory.Lucas Wallmark scored on the power play for the Hurricanes, who have scored just five goals in the past five games, losing four of them. Curtis McElhinney made 18 saves.“We’ve had too many like this, that’s the problem,” coach Rod Brind’Amour said. “We’ve played good enough to win and we don’t get any results. That’s hard on the guys. It’s been a weird year for this. It was a 5-1 game and you think ‘wow, that’s a terrible game,’ I didn’t see it that way. Maybe I’m wrong, I have to look at it again, but it certainly didn’t feel like that.”The Sharks had been outscored 20-7 in losing the first four games on their recent road trip before salvaging it a bit with a 3-1 win in Montreal. Coach Peter DeBoer shuffled the responsibility of his assistants a bit, moving Dave Barr to the bench to work with the forwards, making Rob Zettler the “eye in the sky,” and having Steve Spott shift from overseeing forwards to the defense.“After a road trip like that you have to look in the mirror,” defenseman Justin Braun said. “You can’t look at other guys. You have to figure out what you need to do to help the team win.”They did that as a team and built on that momentum from Montreal against the Hurricanes with Kevin Labanc setting up two goals in the first 10:10 and Jones stopping 17 shots in the first.Labanc took a bad bounce off the boards to feed Goodrow in front to open the scoring and then made a perfect pass from the boards that deflected off Hertl’s stick for a power-play goal midway through the first.San Jose blew a 2-0 lead at Carolina earlier this season Vegas Golden Knights T-Shirts Authentic , losing 4-3 in a shootout. But the Sharks managed to build on this advantage in the second. Meier deflected Radim Simek’s point shot past McElhinney for his 14th goal of the season. Meier had missed the previous three games with an upper-body injury.“He’s been there for us, he’s been solid for us most of the year,” Pavelski said. “For him to come back in, he brings that speed. He plays a good amount of minutes and fills out certain situations, whether it’s a power play, 5-on-5. So it definitely gave us a little boost.”Meier added an assist on Pavelski’s goal, which came when a centering pass was deflected by Carolina’s Jordan Staal into his own net.“It’s tough to sit here and say what we need to do and not sound like I’m bashing us,” defenseman Justin Faulk said. “That’s the way it goes, you look at a few of their goals, they’re just throwing crap at the net, hits a stick, goes off a body. I don’t know.”The Hurricanes managed the power-play goal late in the second, but it wasn’t enough with Sorensen adding the insurance goal in the third off a pass from Meier.NOTES: Joe Thornton had three assists for San Jose, leaving him two shy of tying Marcel Dionne for 10th place all-time with 1,040. … Staal left the game in the third with an upper-body injury. … Simek had his first career point with the assist on Meier’s goal. … Hurricanes D Brett Pesce returned after missing nine games with a lower-body injury.UP NEXT:Carolina: Visit Anaheim on Friday.San Jose: Visit Dallas on Friday. NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Connor Hellebuyck delivered the dominant performance he needed with backup Laurent Brossoit nipping at his net.Hellebuyck made 37 saves and the Winnipeg Jets beat the Nashville Predators 5-1 on Thursday night to stay alone atop the Central Division in a midseason showdown between rivals.“I like this rink Vegas Golden Knights Hoodies Authentic , too,” Hellebuyck said. “Good memories here, too. Something about this place, it just suits my style I guess. I was excited. I was excited to play tonight, and I think it showed.”Hellebuyck improved to 21-13-1 with a big win after Brossoit moved to 10-1-1 with a win over Vegas on Tuesday night.The Jets leave Nashville four points ahead of the Predators with two games in hand. Their final two meetings this season are at Winnipeg in March. The Jets edged Nashville in seven games in the second round of the playoffs last year.Winnipeg coach Paul Maurice said Hellebuyck was really, really good.“He had two or three glove saves that you have to make because this building, it’s like ours,” Maurice said. “If the home team scores a goal, you saw when they scored a goal it got going in here. He kept the building quiet with two, three really important saves.”Brendan Lemieux had two goals for the Jets, who won their fourth straight game. Mason Appleton, Bryan Little and Brandon Tanev also scored. Sami Niku and Joe Morrow each added two assists.“This was one of those games that you circle on your calendar and know it’s going to be a fun one, so I was looking forward to it and it was awesome,” Lemieux said. “Our line played great. It’s good. It’s always good when you can chip in offensively.”Viktor Arvidsson scored his fourth goal in two games for Nashville, which has lost three of four.The Predators had won five of the last six against the Jets on home ice, not counting that playoff series in which Winnipeg took three of four in Nashville to reach the Western Conference final. Nashville shut out Winnipeg 3-0 on Oct. 11.“It was a big game for us Vegas Golden Knights Hats Authentic ,” Predators captain Roman Josi said. “They are right in front of us. They are obviously a great team in our division. It was a big game for us and definitely not happy with the result, but then we’ve got to learn from it.”Nashville started strong, swarming Hellebuyck in the opening minutes. Yet Winnipeg took a 1-0 lead when Lemieux finished off a wraparound by squeezing the puck between the post and Pekka Rinne’s left skate midway through the first period for his fourth this season.The Jets thought they had a 2-0 lead on a wrister by Blake Wheeler late in the period, but Nashville won its challenge that Winnipeg was offside.Nashville started the second on a man advantage only to see Winnipeg quickly get the goal back. Rinne turned away a backhand from Niku on a breakaway, then 30 seconds later Appleton went to the net and redirected the puck into an open net for a 2-0 lead at 3:36.Arvidsson, who had his second career hat trick in a 7-2 win over Washington on Tuesday night, nearly got Nashville on the board with a breakaway. But Hellebuyck made a save that caught the person in charge of the goal horn off guard, already trying to start the celebration.“It wasn’t even close,” Hellebuyck said. “That’s kind of rude.”Arvidsson got his sixth goal in five games at 11:57 of the period with a wrister off a rebound to pull Nashville to 2-1.Little gave Winnipeg a 3-1 lead with 45.6 seconds left in the period, swatting the puck past Rinne off the rebound of Patrik Laine’s shot.Tanev made it 4-1 when he redirected a shot by Niku at 1:54 of the third. Lemieux got his second at 15:38.“They are a fast team, and they are big,” Nashville coach Peter Laviolette said. “It’s not like we’ve never beaten the Jets. They’ve always been this way. Tonight they had their game. They were better.”NOTES: The Jets had lost back-to-back road games but have not lost three straight on the road in regulation since December 2016. … Little extended his point streak to seven games. He has five goals and four assists in that span. … The Predators are 6-15-3 when allowing the first goal. … Arvidsson has 25 points (18 goals, seven assists) in 25 games played this season. His goal tied him with Washington’s Alex Ovechkin , averaging .72 goals per game for best in the NHL.UP NEXTJets: Visit the Dallas Stars on Saturday.Predators: Host the Florida Panthers on Saturday.