Donskoi Continues to Impress Sharks

SAN JOSE – There was little to go by when the new face showed up at captain’s practice. Only the fact that he was there, of course, and a number on the back of his helmet.

No one recognized him. No one knew who he might be.

So the veteran San Jose Sharks did what any self-respecting person does in 2016 when faced with such a conundrum: They Googled it.

They found him. Joonas Donskoi.

He was a former draft pick of the Florida Panthers, taken in the fourth round of the NHL Draft in 2010. He was a product of Karpat of the Finnish League. He was young. He had some shootout goals on his resume, some nice ones, as Logan Couture remembered discovering. He had been signed by the Sharks out of Finland that May, little more than a year before he became a name that no one in San Jose would soon forget.

But back then he was just another young player, one likely bound for the American Hockey League to start the season, one whose signing garnered a press release with little information other than the fact that he had helped his team to a championship, earning playoff MVP honors.

Now they know. Now everyone knows. It was Donskoi who broke a tie in Game 3 against the Pittsburgh Penguins at SAP Center on Saturday, giving the Sharks their first lead in this Stanley Cup Final when he scored the game-winning goal at 12:18 to give San Jose a 3-2 win.

San Jose, which seemed on the brink of going down three games to none, instead put them at 2-1 in the best-of-7 series with Game 4 here on Monday (8 p.m. ET; NBC, CBC, TVA Sports).

“He was gifted with the puck,” Couture said. “He came in and nothing was given to him from the start. Worked for everything. He’s on the bike as soon as the game ends every day at practice. He’s someone who was drafted and not signed, so he kind of has that chip on his …

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