DENVER — Gabriel Landeskog’s first career overtime playoff goal was a bit complicated: Dump in the puck, hit a guy along the boards, fall down, scramble back up, skate toward the net and knock it in.
The captain’s reaction right after was not — a big, toothy grin with arms raised to greet eager teammates.
Landeskog scored 2:32 into overtime after Colorado squandered a late lead in regulation and the Avalanche beat the San Jose Sharks 4-3 on Monday night to force a decisive Game 7 in their Western Conference semifinal series.
“To do that, on home ice, it’s very exciting,” Landeskog said. “I haven’t been happy with my offensive output this time of year. I haven’t been dangerous enough.”
He was certainly a danger on the final play. Landeskog charged after a puck he banged into the zone and then hit Erik Karlsson with enough force to knock off the Sharks defenseman’s helmet.
Landeskog got back up, took the pass from rookie defenseman Cale Makar and sent it by Martin Jones to help the Avalanche escape elimination.
Game 7 is Wednesday in San Jose. The winner will play Dallas or St. Louis in the conference final. The Stars and Blues are tied heading into Game 7 in St. Louis on Tuesday.
The Sharks are 7-4 all time in Game 7s, including an overtime win over Vegas in the first round, while the Avalanche have a 4-6 mark since relocating to the Mile High City.
“Sixty minutes away from a Western Conference final,” Landeskog said. “Who would have thought before the season? … The last thing they wanted to do was play another one in San Jose. We accomplished step No. 1 and now we have to regroup and win another one.”
J.T. Compher scored twice and had an assist, while Tyson Jost added another goal.
Philipp Grubauer made 19 saves, including a pad save on Tomas Hertl early in overtime.
Marc-Edouard Vlasic scored twice, including the tying goal off the skate of an Avalanche defenseman with 2:28 remaining, and Brent Burns added another for the Sharks, who overcame one-goal deficits on three occasions.
“We were positive. We felt like we could win this game,” Sharks forward Logan Couture said. “We just needed a little bit more. We needed a little bit more people involved in the game.”
This has been a back-and-forth series. San Jose captured Game 1 and the two have alternated wins the rest of the way. The combined score in the series is 17-16 in favor of the Sharks.
“It’s been punch, counter-punch, punch,” Sharks coach Peter DeBoer said. “What did they do tonight that we didn’t do? They found a way to get an extra goal.”
Colorado has been playing desperate hockey since late in the regular season just trying to sneak into the playoffs.
The team went 8-0-2 down the stretch to secure the eighth seed. The Avalanche haven’t lost back-to-back games since mid-March.
“Every game was kind of an elimination game for us, so to speak,” defenseman Erik Johnson said.
The last time Colorado won Game 6 when facing a 3-2 deficit was the 2002 conference semifinals, which also happened to be against San Jose.
The Avalanche then knocked off the Sharks 1-0 at home in Game 7.
Nathan MacKinnon nearly gave Colorado a 4-2 advantage late in the game, but his attempt was deflected away by the stick of Burns.
Soon after, Vlasic tied it up when he banked a shot off the right skate of Colorado defenseman Nikita Zadorov.
Colorado took a goal lead on two separate occasions in the second period, only to have the Sharks tie it right back up.
After Jost scored, Vlasic answered. And after Compher’s goal, Burns responded with 9.8 seconds left.
It was a painful second period for Mikko Rantanen, who took a hip check from Burns in the right hip/thigh area. Rantanen immediately went to the bench and into the locker room. Rantanen gingerly returned about 4 minutes later.
Colorado hit two posts in a scoreless first period. Jones has surrendered just one goal to Colorado in the opening period all series.
Sharks captain Joe Pavelski made another step toward a return as he went through drills Monday at Pepsi Center. He’s been out since his head slammed against the ice in Game 7 of a first-round series against Vegas.
“It still really is day-to-day,” Pavelski said. “Wish I had a set-in-stone answer — go here, do this and be ready. We’re taking everything into play.”