Aaron Ekblad returned after a seven-game absence and scored the go-ahead goal and assisted on another to help spark the Florida Panthers to a 7-2 victory over the lowly San Jose Sharks at SAP Center.
Ekblad took a pass from Matthew Tkachuk and snapped a shot through traffic from the right point that eluded Alexander Georgiev to put the Panthers back on top with 2:52 left in the first period after Sam Bennett pushed in his own rebound to the tie the game after consecutive San Jose goals by Cody Ceci and Will Smith.
Nate Schmidt’s unassisted blast at 5:47 opened the scoring.
Tomas Nosek sent A.J. Greer away for a beautiful breakaway marker 3:01 into the second to chase Georgiev and Tkachuk, Jesper Boqvist and Sam Reinhart beat prized rookie Yaroslav Askarov before the end of the frame to make it a laugher.
Tkachuk’s nifty power-play redirection, from Aleksander Barkov and Ekblad, at the 5:35 mark, ended his eight-game scoring drought.
Barkov didn’t manage to find the back of the net, but did finish the game with two assists, his first multi-point game of 2025.
Tkachuk also had two helpers and Greer, Niko Mikkola, Anton Lundell and Carter Verhaeghe each collected one apiece.
After going up by five, the Panthers held the Sharks to four shots on Sergei Bobrovsky in third. Bobrovsky finished up with 21 saves and posted his 20th win of the season.
The Panthers, who are now just one point behind Toronto for first place in the Atlantic Division, will get right back at it with a late afternoon (local time) game in Sin City against the Vegas Golden Knights.
Teeth & Tails
- Matthew Tkachuk earned First Star honors for his three-point effort. It was his his 70th multi-point game as Panther and first since January 8, when he had a goal and an assist against Utah.
- Aleksander Barkov primary assist on Tkachuk’s goal was his 751st career point, moving him past Olli Jokinen for the fourth-most points by a Finnish player in NHL history. His second helper of the night was his 30th assist of the season.
- Jake Walman drew the lone assist on Cody Ceci’s redirection goal and Mario Ferraro and Fabian Zetterlund collected the helpers on rookie Will Smith’s eighth.
- In addition to scoring, Nate Schmidt and Jesper Boqvist finished the game with a plus-three rating, as did Gustav Forsling.
- Alexander Georgiev departed with 11 saves on 15 shots. Yaroslav Askarov stopped 14 of the 17 shots he faced in relief.