In brief: Marleau scores twice as Sharks win 4th straight

NHL: Patrick Marleau scored twice and Joe Pavelski had the lone shootout goal in the San Jose Sharks’ 4-3 victory over the Columbus Blue Jackets on Thursday night in Columbus, Ohio.

After tying his career high of 66 points with an assist on Marleau’s second goal, Pavelski deked Sergei Bobrovsky and roofed a backhander in the tiebreaker to give San Jose its fourth straight win.

Marleau scored his 27th and 28th goals. Matt Nieto also scored and Logan Couture had two assists for the Sharks, who are 8-1-1 in their last 10 to move into a tie with Anaheim for the Pacific Division lead.

Backup goalie Alex Stalock made 35 saves, including a spectacular post-to-post stop on Jack Johnson with seconds remaining in regulation and Columbus on the power play.

• Bruins take Eastern Conference lead with win: Tuukka Rask made 21 saves and the Boston Bruins beat the visiting Phoenix Coyotes 2-1 for their seventh consecutive victory.

Zdeno Chara and Jarome Iginla scored for Boston. The Bruins took over the top spot in the Eastern Conference with 93 points, one more than Pittsburgh.

Mike Smith made 18 saves for the Coyotes, who had won two straight.

• Capitals re-sign Orlov: Defenseman Dmitry Orlov signed a $4 million, two-year contract extension with the Washington Capitals.

Noah flirts with fourth triple-double in win

Sport: Mike Dunleavy scored all of his 21 points in the second half, Joakim Noah flirted with another triple-double and the Chicago Bulls posted a 111-87 wire-to-wire victory over the visiting Houston Rockets.

Noah finished with 13 points, 10 rebounds and nine assists in 34 minutes. He was headed for his fourth triple-double of the season, but sat down with about three minutes left because of the lopsided score.

Kirk Hinrich scored 19 points for Chicago, going 5 for 6 on 3-pointers, Carlos Boozer added 18 points, D.J. Augustin 13 and Jimmy Butler 11.

The Bulls improved to 2-2 on their six-game home stand.

The Rockets have dropped two straight. Reserve guard Jeremy Lin led Houston with 21 points, while Dwight Howard had 12 points and 10 rebounds in 28 minutes. James Harden had eight points on 2-for-7 shooting in 27 minutes.

• Korver leads way in fourth quarter as Hawks top Bucks: Kyle Korver scored 12 of his 15 points in the fourth quarter to help home team Atlanta beat the Milwaukee Bucks 102-97 for the Hawks’ first back-to-back victories in nearly six weeks.

Jeff Teague added 22 points, including eight in the final period when the struggling teams traded the lead several times.

The Hawks went ahead for good when Korver’s 3-pointer gave them a 90-89 edge with 2:15 left.

Both teams entered the contest having lost 14 of their previous 16 games. The Hawks (28-35) have plummeted to the No. 8 spot in the Eastern Conference standings. They lead the surging Knicks (26-40), who have won five in a row, by 3 1/2 games for the final playoff spot.

Brandon Knight and Ersan Ilyasova scored 20 points each for Milwaukee (13-52), which has the worst record in the NBA.

• Wizards’ Wall fined comments: Washington Wizards guard John Wall was fined $15,000 by the NBA for inappropriate comments toward game officials. Wall made the remarks after the Wizards’ 98-85 home loss to the Charlotte Bobcats on Wednesday night.

Every ties for lead in brutal conditions

Miscellany: Matt Every made the best of the worst conditions at the Copperhead course at Innisbrook and wound up in a four-way tie for the lead in the Valspar Championship in Palm Harbor, Fla.

Pat Perez, Greg Chalmers and Danny Lee played in warmer weather in the afternoon and joined Every atop the leaderboard at 3-under 68.

Only three players broke 70 in the morning. Eight others broke 70 in the afternoon.

Among those at 69 were Matteo Manassero of Italy, Nicolas Colsaerts of Belgium and Bill Haas.

Justin Rose, the highest-ranked player in the field at No. 7, opened with a 71.

• Fenninger clinches first overall World Cup: Anna Fenninger of Austria clinched her first overall World Cup title by placing second in a super-G won by Lara Gut of Switzerland in Lenzerheide, Switzerland.

Fenninger built a 215-point lead over Gut with two races remaining and cannot be caught.

Fenninger’s path to the title was eased when her closest challenger, Maria Hoefl-Riesch of Germany, sustained season-ending injuries after crashing in the downhill on Wednesday.

The 24-year-old Fenninger adds Alpine skiing’s Crystal Globe to the Olympic gold medal in super-G and silver in giant slalom she won in Sochi last month.

• Pinturault wins World Cup super-G as Svindal slumps: Alexis Pinturault of France surprisingly won a World Cup super-G, and Bode Miller of the United States was third in Lenzerheide, Switzerland.

In the race for the overall title, Marcel Hirscher of Austria closed the gap on super-G specialist Aksel Lund Svindal of Norway.

Hirscher placed 12th in a rare super-G start as Svindal finished out of the points in 16th, trailing 2.16 seconds behind Pinturault.

Ted Ligety of the United States was fifth.