Thornton, Sharks set to welcome Stars

With team captain and leading scorer Logan Couture sidelined for approximately six weeks with a fractured left ankle, the San Jose Sharks needed someone to step up.

Enter Joe Thornton.

The 40-year-old scored the winning goal in a 3-1 victory against streaking Columbus on Tuesday in his 1,612th NHL game, tying him with Ray Bourque for 11th in league history.

Thornton will surpass Bourque when the Sharks play host Saturday to the Dallas Stars, who have won six consecutive games. It will be the first game against his former team for Stars forward Joe Pavelski, who played 963 games for the Sharks between 2006-19 before signing with Dallas as a free agent in the offseason.

"I think it'll be weird," Pavelski told ESPN. "Probably seeing the jersey will be the hardest part. It'll be awkward in a lot of ways."

Couture succeeded Pavelski as the Sharks' captain.

And preceeding Pavelski?

That would be Thornton, who scored only his second goal of the season in Thursday's victory.

"He surprises me every night with something else," interim Sharks coach Bob Boughner said of Thornton. "I've increased his minutes and he's responded positively to that. ... (He's) one of those guys who's got to fill the shoes of Couture. I thought 'Jumbo' did that tonight."

Kevin Labanc had a goal and had an assist, Brent Burns also scored and Aaron Dell made 30 saves for the Sharks, who put an end to the Blue Jackets' nine-game road point streak.

"Winning is fun, we haven't had a ton of it this year," Dell told NHL.com. "We're heading in the right direction. We're doing a lot of the little things better (and) more consistently throughout the whole game. That's a key for us right now."

San Jose improved to 4-2-2 over its past eight games after going 1-8-1 over its previous 10.

"First home game in a couple weeks, guys were rolling, it was nice, good shifts, everyone was working hard on the forecheck," Labanc said. "That's how we've got to play the rest of the season."

After five consecutive comeback victories, the Stars had no trouble Thursday in a 3-0 victory at Anaheim.

Ben Bishop made 27 saves for his 33rd career shutout, Roope Hintz had a goal and an assist and Denis Gurianov and Alexander Radulov scored power-play goals for the Stars, who remained unbeaten since Christmas.

"I think we are just sticking to our game plan," said Bishop, who also had an assist during his second shutout of the season. "We knew that they were going to be a desperate team. I thought we did a good job all three periods. Special teams was huge. It was the difference in the game there."

The Stars will close the California portion of their trip without forward Corey Perry, who is three games into his five-game suspension for elbowing Nashville's Ryan Ellis in the Winter Classic.

Dallas defenseman John Klingberg is listed as day-to-day after missing the past three games with a lower-body injury.

This will be the first meeting of the season between the Stars and Sharks.

"It's nice and it's been fun to win, but you can't take your foot off the pedal in this league," Stars coach Rick Bowness said. "It's too tight. The standings are just too tight and you can't relax, and we won't."

--Field Level Media