A Rookie's First Goal, Orlov's Four-Point Night and Marchment's Shootout Winner: The Sharks Rally Past the Mammoth, 6-5

The San Jose Sharks have spent much of this young season learning how to lose close games. On Saturday night in Salt Lake City, they showed they are also learning how to win them.

The Sharks rallied from an early two-goal hole, traded leads late in the third period and beat the Utah Mammoth, 6-5, in a shootout, with Mason Marchment scoring the deciding goal and Macklin Celebrini also converting his attempt. Goaltender Yaroslav Askarov made 27 saves for San Jose.

The win snapped a rough stretch for the Sharks, who had lost six of their previous seven games, while the slumping Mammoth dropped their fifth straight, according to NHL.com.

Utah jumped out to a 3-1 lead early, and for a while it looked like another long night for the visitors. San Jose kept chipping away.

The tying goal came from an unlikely source. Rookie Eric Pohlkamp scored the first goal of his NHL career at 5:23 of the third period, snapping a wrist shot from the top of the slot to make it 4-4, with Celebrini and defenseman Dmitry Orlov setting him up. The 22-year-old has three points in six games since being called up earlier this month, CBS Sports noted.

Orlov then gave San Jose its first lead with 5:43 remaining, blasting a slap shot past the Utah goaltender to make it 5-4. The Mammoth answered on the power play when Barrett Hayton tied it with 3:38 left, and the teams went through overtime without another goal.

Zac Jones scored twice for Utah in the loss.

In the shootout, Celebrini scored for San Jose, and Marchment finished it, sending the Sharks home with two points.

The veteran on the blue line was the difference. NHL.com credited Orlov with a goal and three assists, a four-point night that put his fingerprints on nearly every important moment of the comeback.

That matters for a team built around youth. The Sharks have handed the keys to Celebrini, and the young center continues to deliver. Earlier this week, in a 3-2 shootout loss to Pittsburgh, he had a goal and an assist to reach 200 career points, NHL.com reported. That night, Pittsburgh's Ben Kindel scored the only goal of the shootout. On Saturday, Celebrini and his teammates were the ones who came through when the game went to the skills competition.

There is an old hockey saying that you have to learn how to win before you can win consistently. Rebuilding teams lose a lot of one-goal games, and the good ones eventually figure out how to turn them around. Saturday's game had every test a young team could face: an early deficit on the road, a late lead that slipped away on a power-play goal, and an overtime and shootout that demanded composure.

San Jose passed every one of them. A rookie scored his first goal in the biggest moment of the game. A veteran defenseman led by example. The goaltender held firm. And the young star at the center of the rebuild took his shot and made it.

That is the kind of win a locker room remembers. Character in sports is often built in exactly these nights, when it would be easier to fold after giving up a late tying goal and instead a group of players decides to keep going. Coaches preach it; the Sharks lived it.

For Utah, the questions grow louder. A five-game losing streak is a long stretch for a team with higher hopes, and giving up a two-goal lead at home will sting. The Mammoth showed fight of their own by tying the game late, but they could not finish it.

For San Jose, the challenge is to turn one gritty night into a habit. The Sharks have shown they can stay in games against anyone; the next step is closing them out in regulation, and finding more of the timely scoring that Pohlkamp and Orlov supplied on Saturday. Pohlkamp's first goal is a milestone for him and a sign that the organization's youth movement keeps getting deeper.

Utah, meanwhile, will try to stop a five-game slide that now includes a blown two-goal lead on home ice.

Hockey seasons are long, and one shootout win in November does not make a playoff team. But for a club that has been on the wrong end of close games too often this year, Saturday was a reminder that perseverance pays.