SAN JOSE, California (Ticker) -- It was only fitting that neither the Phoenix Coyotes nor the San Jose Sharks skated away with a victory.
Scott Thornton scored with 4:37 remaining in the third period to lift the Coyotes into a 4-4 tie with the Sharks in a seesaw battle between two struggling teams.
Entering with three consecutive losses, Phoenix took a lead on a power-play goal by defenseman David Tanabe eight minutes into the first period. But the Sharks, who were winless in their previous four contests, scored twice in a 36-second span later in the session to move ahead.
Shane Doan knotted the game with a highlight-reel goal early in the second before defenseman Kyle McLaren put San Jose in front with his first tally since February 23, 2001 with three minutes remaining in the period.
Defenseman Paul Mara and Mike Sillinger scored less than two minutes apart midway through the third to give the Coyotes a 4-3 advantage. But Thornton took a pass from Mike Ricci at the right side of the net and knocked his third attempt past goaltender Zac Bierk to draw San Jose even.
"I think when you score a late goal for the tie like that, it sort of feels kind of like a win for us," Thornton said. "Right now, any positives we can draw from any of these games are good and I think we had a lot more offense than we've had in the earlier games."
In his season debut, Bierk stopped 41 shots for the Coyotes. San Jose goalie Evgeni Nabokov made 31 saves, including 13 in the third period.
With McLaren serving a high-sticking penalty, Tanabe beat Nabokov with a slap shot from the top of the slot for a 1-0 Phoenix lead. But Marco Sturm and Jonathan Cheechoo each scored his second goal of the season later in the period to put the Sharks in front.
"It was an offensive game," Bierk said. "San Jose was playing desperate tonight. ... I thought we weathered the storm and we showed a lot of intensity and emotion and some creativity offensively. We were able to score some goals."
Less than two minutes into the second, Doan got away from two Sharks in the left faceoff circle and whipped a shot past Nabokov while laying on the ice to knot the game at 2-2.
McLaren blasted a slap shot from the blue line at 16:58 that got by Bierk for his first tally in 100 games, giving San Jose a 3-2 advantage.
"The funny thing is, me and (teammate) Mark Smith were looking at the stat sheet and I glanced at it. Ninety-nine games and this is the 100th game where I didn't have a goal and for some reason, tonight was my lucky night," McLaren said. "Hopefully, I won't have to wait another 100 games to get one."
Midway through the third, Ladislav Nagy led a 2-on-1 but was stopped by Nabokov. Mara pounced on the rebound for his first goal of the season, knotting the contest.
"Paul's gotten better each and every day and he's a horse back there," Phoenix coach Bob Francis said. "He's going to log a lot of minutes and he has the ability to recover, so he's turning into a top-notch defenseman in this league."
"The only way in our league you can give up 2-on-1s is if defensemen make poor decisions," San Jose coach Ron Wilson said. "On one hand, you can look at it and say we're trying to make a difference, trying to bury the other team and win. But there's a time and place to do that."
Sillinger gave Phoenix a 4-3 lead at 11:45 with his first goal as a Coyote, a wrist shot from the left circle that found the top right corner of the net.
