Tkackuk, Panthers dominant in 7-2 victory over San Jose

The Florida Panthers sure bounced back from their blown lead in Los Angeles in a big way on Saturday.

Skating against the struggling San Jose Sharks, Florida was dominant for much of the night, eventually earning an impressive 7-2 victory.

It took less than six minutes for the Panthers to get the scoring started on Saturday against the Sharks.

The play started in Florida’s end, with Alex Wennberg just missing on a wraparound attempt with Sergei Bobrovsky diving to get back into position.

Florida immediately transitioned up the ice and into the Sharks’ end, and while Marc-Edouard Vlasic was able to steal the puck from Jesper Boqvist, he immediately sent a pizza up the middle of the ice.

Nate Schmidt said thank you very much and leaned into a slap shot that Alexandar Georgiev could not stop, giving Florida an early 1-0 lead.

San Jose tied the game just 63 seconds later on a nice deflection by Cody Ceci in the slot on a point shot from Jake Walman, and Will Smith gave the Sharks the lead only 32 seconds after that.

Panthers captain Sasha Barkov nearly tied the game on the very next shift but Georgiev came up with a spectacular diving stick save, but things would go downhill from there for the veteran goaltender.

First it was Sam Bennett popping in a loose puck after sending a backhand on goal from the slot, then Aaron Ekblad blasted a goal past Georgiev to put Florida back ahead.

A great feed by Tomas Nosek sent A.J. Greer on a breakaway early in the second, and he slid a backhand shot through Georgiev’s legs to extend Florida’s lead to 4-2 and send Georgiev to the bench.

The goals kept coming as Matthew Tkachuk deflected a shot by Barkov past Yaroslav Askarov at the 5:35 mark, and then Jesper Boqvist finished off a nice passing play from Anton Lundell and Carter Verhaeghe to give the Cats a 6-2 lead.

It didn’t stop there. Sam Reinhart found the puck on his stick and Askarov out of position with 3:35 to go, kicking the extra point for Florida and giving them a 7-2 lead.

We’ll see if Florida saved any offense for Sunday night in Vegas.

On to the Golden Knights.

QUICK THOUGHTS

Florida has now won 12 straight games against San Jose.

Schmidt’s goal was his first in 30 games.

After going 20 games between goals, Bennett has now scored twice in three games.

Ekblad finished with a goal and an assist…

Reinhart’s goal was his 19th on the road, which leads the NHL for goals scored away from home.

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