Sharks 6, Red Wings 4: Patrick Marleau scored a pair of third-period goals and set up another as visiting San Jose outlasted Detroit to keep alive its flickering playoff hopes.

Logan Couture and Chris Tierney each recorded a goal and an assist while defenseman Marc-Edouard Vlasic and Matt Nieto netted first-period tallies for the Sharks, who trail Los Angeles by eight points for third place in the Pacific Division. Antti Niemi made 30 saves to improve to 13-3-2 lifetime against the Red Wings.

Tomas Jurco, Tomas Tatar, Stephen Weiss and Justin Abdelkader scored for slumping Detroit, which owns a five-point lead over Ottawa and Boston for third place in the Atlantic Division despite suffering its eighth defeat in 11 games (3-7-1). Jimmy Howard allowed three first-period goals on 10 shots before giving way to Petr Mrazek (17 saves).

Couture made it 4-2 just 31 seconds into the third period and Weiss cleaned up a rebound in front three minutes later, but Marleau restored the two-goal advantage with a wrister from the right faceoff circle just before the five-minute mark. The Red Wings cut the deficit to 5-4 when Joe Thornton's clearing attempt bounced off a teammate and into the net after defenseman Jonathan Ericsson's shot hit Abdelkader in front, but Marleau sealed it by scoring into an empty net with 77 seconds left.

Vlasic ignited a five-goal first period by scoring 19 seconds in with a soft wrister from the blue line before Nieto doubled the lead nine minutes later, flicking a shot in off the post. Jurco answered 50 seconds later off a wild scramble in front before Tatar tied it with a redirection of defenseman Danny DeKeyser's shot after a turnover by Tierney, who atoned for the miscue with a wraparound that banked off the skate of Ericsson.

GAME NOTEBOOK: Couture reached 60 points for the second time and is five shy of his career high set in 2011-12. ... Jurco ended a 39-game goalless drought with his first tally since Nov. 26 for Detroit, which was without C Pavel Datsyuk for a fifth consecutive game. ... Detroit was 0-for-4 on the man advantage and failed to score a power-play goal for only the second time in 14 games.