Jonathan Bernier had 38 saves and Tyson Jost and J.T. Compher each had a goal and an assist to lead the Colorado Avalanche to their ninth straight home win, 3-1, over the San Jose Sharks on Tuesday night at the Pepsi Center in Denver.

Gabriel Bourque also scored a goal for the Avalanche, who won despite getting outshot, 39-20.

Joel Ward scored a goal and Martin Jones stopped 17 shots for San Jose, which had a two-game win streak snapped.

Colorado, coming off a six-game road trip, started slowly, managing just three shots to 14 for the Sharks in a scoreless first period. But Bourque and Jost both scored in the first five minutes after the first intermission to give the Avalanche a 2-0 lead.

Bourque started the scoring when he easily tapped in Compher's pass through the crease into the left side of the net. Jost followed just over two minutes later when he took a Nail Yakupov pass at the blue line, then split a pair of Shark defenders and fired a wrist shot over Jones' glove hand.

Ward, who hadn't scored since a 3-1 win at Arizona on Nov. 22 -- a stretch of 30 games -- cut it to 2-1 at 13:29 when he rifled one under the crossbar for his fifth goal of the season. It also was Ward's sixth goal in 12 games against Colorado.

The Sharks pulled Jones with 1:33 to go, and Bernier made a pair of tough saves on wrist shots by Kevin Labanc from the right circle and Logan Couture from about 15 feet in the slot before Compher sealed it was a long empty-netter with 3.6 seconds left.

San Jose, which is in second place in the Pacific Division, returns home to host the Western Conference-leading Vegas Golden Knights on Thursday while Colorado begins another three-game road trip at St. Louis, also on Thursday.

--Field Level Media