By SANTOSH VENKATARAMAN
STATS Senior Writer

San Jose (10-4-1) at Columbus (7-5-1), 7:00 p.m. EDT

The San Jose Sharks had eight players score goals last weekend
as they earned two victories and stretched their winning streak
to five.

They'll try to showcase that balance again Wednesday night when
they face the Columbus Blue Jackets in the second game of their
three-game road trip.

San Jose (10-4-1) beat Colorado 3-1 on Friday before opening its
trip with a 5-1 victory over Carolina on Sunday. Patrick Marleau
recorded his team-high 11th goal after defensemen Kent Huskins
and Douglas Murray each scored their first.

"I think that's a part of our team," Huskins said. "All of our
defensemen can kind of get up in the rush and make it an odd-man
rush. If we can chip in goals, that's great."

The Sharks scored 18 goals during their five consecutive
victories. Marleau had four goals and six assists in that span
while Dany Heatley added three and two.

Evgeni Nabokov won four starts in a row with a 1.47
goals-against average in that stretch for San Jose, which faces
Detroit on Thursday. Nabokov is 17-4-2 with a 1.80 GAA against
Columbus (7-5-1).

"We're playing better and better each night and doing the things
we need to do to win," Murray said. "We played very sloppy in
the beginning of the year. We got wins because (Nabokov) stood
on his head. We obviously have a lot of talent on this team and
we were explosive and scored four or five goals here or there. I
didn't think we played very good hockey at all.

"We've started to play better. We can certainly play better, but
we're playing better now."

Heatley had three goals and an assist in a 6-3 home victory over
Columbus on Oct. 8. The Sharks went 6-0-2 in their last eight
meetings with the Blue Jackets.

Columbus lost its last two home games, but rallied for a 5-4
overtime win at Washington on Sunday. Raffi Torres tied the game
twice in the third period and R.J. Umberger scored on the power
play in the extra session.

"He stepped up for sure," Columbus forward Rick Nash said of
Torres. "That first one was huge. Good battle down low, good
wrap-around."

Nash had a goal and an assist to bring his point total to nine
in his last five games. The Blue Jackets captain, though, wants
to see more from his team, which reached the playoffs for the
first time last season.

"It's a big win, but we've still got a lot of work to do," Nash
said. "When we play on the road, we can't be taking too many
penalties. We made some defensive errors when the game was tied.
Just got to sharpen up those areas."