SAN JOSE \u2013 The San Jose Sharks\u2019 season-opening game against the Florida Panthers felt like a playoff game.<\/p>\n
Fights, scrums, big hits, and some impressive goals in a back-and-forth game made the Shark Tank the loudest it has been in a long time, maybe since the team\u2019s last postseason appearance in 2019.<\/p>\n
Then the roof came off in overtime.<\/p>\n
With 1:46 left in overtime, defenseman Luca Cagnoni took a pass from Will Smith and beat Panthers goalie Akira Schmid for his first career NHL goal and a 4-3 Sharks win before an announced sellout crowd of 17,435 at SAP Center.<\/p>\n
Smith also scored twice, and goalie Yaroslav Askarov finished with 23 saves to lead the team to its first season-opening win since 2021.<\/p>\n
The Sharks coughed up a 3-0 lead, allowing a power-play goal to Eetu Luostarinen with 2:50 left in the second period before giving up third-period goals to Luostarinen and Matthew Tkachuk 17 seconds apart. Instead of folding, though, the Sharks withstood another Panthers push and held on for an impressive victory, despite some miscues.<\/p>\n
\u201cMaybe in years prior, we would start freaking out a little bit and kind of get down in the dumps,\u201d Smith said of blowing a three-goal lead. \u201cBut this year, there\u2019s no quit, and we got the job finished.\u201d<\/p>\n
Macklin Celebrini finished with three assists, including one on Cagnoni\u2019s goal. He had the primary assist on both of Smith\u2019s goals, including his power-play goal at the 10:37 mark of the second period that gave the Sharks a 3-0 lead.<\/p>\n
The Panthers lost their captain, center Aleksander Barkov, to an unsightly injury with 11:53 left in the second period. He was battling for the puck with Zack Ostapchuk and Darnell Nurse in the corner to the left of the Sharks\u2019 net when he lost his balance after a push from Nurse and fell awkwardly to the ice, with his lower left leg bending the wrong way.<\/p>\n
Panthers coach Paul Maurice said Barkov will be re-evaluated after the team gets to Southern California on Friday. Florida plays Anaheim on Sunday and Los Angeles on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Barkov was playing his second game of the year after he missed all of last season after tearing his ACL and MCL during the 2025 training camp.<\/p>\n
Takeaways from Thursday\u2019s game.<\/p>\n
A FEISTY TEST<\/p>\n
From the first period, the game had an edge, as the Panthers went at Celebrini at least twice, first at 7:40 of the first period when Barkov and Brady Tkachuk both hit and knocked down the Sharks captain.<\/p>\n
Right as Celebrini hit the ice, defenseman Jacob Trouba jumped in and cross-checked Tkachuk before the two dropped the gloves. Celebrini later knocked down Barkov.<\/p>\n
Shortly afterward, Panthers center Anton Lundell hit Celebrini from behind into the boards, causing another ruckus near center ice close to the teams\u2019 benches.<\/p>\n
Just 45 seconds after the Sharks killed a cross-checking penalty to Darnell Nurse, Marchment gave the Sharks the lead. With Celebrini and Smith near the Panthers crease, Marchment\u2019s shot got through traffic and past Akira Schmid for the first goal of the Sharks\u2019 season.<\/p>\n
This was a good test for the Sharks, who feel they are on the cusp of breaking through and making the playoffs for the first time since 2019. They had a measuring stick in Florida, Stanley Cup champions in 2024 and 2025.<\/p>\n
ASKAROV DELIVERS<\/p>\n
Askarov looked calm in two preseason games; the question was whether he could keep it up to start the regular season. He mostly answered the bell, with the goal allowed to Luostarinen coming after a couple of crazy bounces in front of the net.<\/p>\n
In two preseason starts, Askarov went 1-0-1 with a stellar .942 save percentage. Askarov was at his best on the penalty kill, making eight saves.<\/p>\n
TOO MANY PENALTIES<\/p>\n
The Sharks got caught playing the Panthers\u2019 no-holds-barred style at times, and were shorthanded a staggering six times in the first two periods.<\/p>\n
The Sharks killed the first five penalties, thanks mostly to Askarov. But they also got three shots on net while on the penalty kill, and scored once when Smith took a pass from Celebrini on a 2-on-1 and fired a shot past Schmid for a 2-0 Sharks lead at the 5:52 mark of the second.<\/p>\n
The goal came near the end of a double minor penalty on Kiefer Sherwood for high-sticking Barkov.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN JOSE \u2013 The San Jose Sharks\u2019 season-opening game against the Florida Panthers felt like a playoff game.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":416466,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29,4386,9635,115,5691,21606,164559,110],"class_list":["post-416465","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-hockey","tag-inside-sports","tag-news","tag-nhl","tag-san-jose-sharks","tag-sharks-alert","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416465","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=416465"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/416465\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/416466"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=416465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=416465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=416465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}