{"id":538039,"date":"2026-04-03T06:16:17","date_gmt":"2026-04-03T06:16:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/538039\/"},"modified":"2026-04-03T06:16:17","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T06:16:17","slug":"sharks-win-4th-straight-to-improve-playoff-hopes-beating-the-maple-leafs-4-1-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/538039\/","title":{"rendered":"Sharks win 4th straight to improve playoff hopes, beating the Maple Leafs 4-1"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) \u2014 Zack Ostapchuk scored his first goal in nearly three months and the San Jose Sharks beat the Toronto Maple Leafs 4-1 on Thursday night for their fourth straight victory.<\/p>\n<p>Collin Graf, William Eklund and Adam Gaudette also scored and Alex Nedeljkovic made 18 saves.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>San Jose, which had the worst record in the NHL last season, holds the second wild-card spot in the crowded Western Conference. The Sharks haven\u2019t made the playoffs since 2018-19.<\/p>\n<p>Sharks star Macklin Celebrini, who had nine points in his previous three games, was scoreless on three shots.<\/p>\n<p>John Tavares scored a power-play goal for Toronto. The Maple Leafs have lost two of three on a four-game trip.<\/p>\n<p>Up next<\/p>\n<p>Maple Leafs: At Los Angeles on Saturday.<\/p>\n<p>Sharks: Host Nashville on Saturday night.<\/p>\n<p>___<\/p>\n<p>AP NHL: <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/nhl\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/nhl;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;https&quot;}\" class=\"link \">https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/nhl<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Michael Wagaman, The Associated Press<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) \u2014 Zack Ostapchuk scored his first goal in nearly three months and the San&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":538040,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5106],"tags":[2806,5807,845,5,611,793,501,20,5172,2409,4,519,168,42730,1692,66,31,5171,2071,801,500],"class_list":{"0":"post-538039","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-toronto-maple-leafs","8":"tag-adam-gaudette","9":"tag-alex-nedeljkovic","10":"tag-collin-graf","11":"tag-hockey","12":"tag-john-tavares","13":"tag-los-angeles","14":"tag-macklin-celebrini","15":"tag-maple-leafs","16":"tag-mapleleafs","17":"tag-nashville","18":"tag-nhl","19":"tag-san-jose","20":"tag-san-jose-sharks","21":"tag-straight-victory","22":"tag-the-sharks","23":"tag-toronto","24":"tag-toronto-maple-leafs","25":"tag-torontomapleleafs","26":"tag-western-conference","27":"tag-william-eklund","28":"tag-zack-ostapchuk"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116339316128834477","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538039","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=538039"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538039\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/538040"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=538039"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=538039"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=538039"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}