{"id":140982,"date":"2026-01-20T03:59:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-20T03:59:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/140982\/"},"modified":"2026-01-20T03:59:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-20T03:59:11","slug":"san-jose-sharks-beat-florida-panthers-4-1-as-rare-goalie-fight-highlights-matthew-tkachuks-season-debut","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/140982\/","title":{"rendered":"San Jose Sharks beat Florida Panthers 4-1 as rare goalie fight highlights Matthew Tkachuk’s season debut"},"content":{"rendered":"

Will Smith scored in his second consecutive game after missing a month because of injury, and the San Jose Sharks spoiled Matthew Tkachuk<\/a>‘s season debut by beating the two-time defending champion Florida Panthers<\/a> 4-1 on Monday night in a game highlighted by a rare goalie fight.<\/p>\n

Florida’s Sergei Bobrovsky beelined out of his crease and all the way down the ice to take on San Jose’s Alex Nedeljkovic, who had inserted himself into a scrum in the corner with 14 minutes left. Fans chanted, “Bobby! Bobby!” and cheered the netminder nicknamed “Bob” who has backstopped the team to back-to-back Stanley Cup titles.<\/p>\n

The second meeting between the teams this season, and first since Nov. 8, got increasingly chippy with pushing and shoving after whistles and more than a few punches thrown. <\/p>\n

Between the whistles, the Sharks also got goals from defensemen Vincent Desharnais and Mario Ferraro and 36 saves from Nedeljkovic. Barclay Goodrow sealed it with an empty-netter, and San Jose won hours after general manager Mike Grier signaled his team is going for it this season following a lengthy rebuild by acquiring winger Kiefer Sherwood in a trade with Vancouver.<\/p>\n

Tkachuk skated just under 21 minutes and had three shots on goal in his first game since helping Florida repeat and hoisting the Cup in June. The 28-year-old winger, who was picked to play for the U.S. at the Olympics next month in Milan, underwent surgery last summer to deal with a sports hernia and torn adductor muscle.<\/p>\n

Eetu Luostarinen scored the Panthers’ goal. Bobrovsky allowed three on 27 shots, giving up several juicy rebounds that San Jose capitalized on.<\/p>\n

Puck drop was moved up an hour to a 6 p.m. ET start after the Miami Hurricanes<\/a> made the college football national title game, which was being played in their nearby home stadium.<\/p>\n

Sharks: Wrap up their road trip Tuesday night at Tampa Bay.<\/p>\n

Panthers: Open a three-game trip Thursday night at Winnipeg.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Will Smith scored in his second consecutive game after missing a month because of injury, and the San…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":140983,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[553,404,88,90,89,98,4634],"class_list":{"0":"post-140982","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-jose","8":"tag-florida","9":"tag-nhl","10":"tag-san-jose","11":"tag-san-jose-headlines","12":"tag-san-jose-news","13":"tag-san-jose-sharks","14":"tag-stanley-cup"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140982","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=140982"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140982\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/140983"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=140982"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=140982"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=140982"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}