SAN JOSE – The Florida Panthers showed their resilience while picking up an important early-season point in a 4-3 overtime loss to the San Jose Sharks at SAP Center on Thursday.
Already playing without top-pair defenseman Gustav Forsling, who is listed as day to day, the Panthers lost their superstar captain, Aleksander Barkov, to an injury in the second period.
Still, they clawed back from a 3-0 deficit to earn a point.
"We could have gone one or two ways and felt bad for ourselves and mailed it in, but I thought we played really well, especially in the third,” said forward Matthew Tkachuk, who scored the late equalizer. “That's a gritty point that we got. It was a pretty gritty game. A lot of stuff going on that normally you don't see, especially when we play each other.”
Opening the scoring for the Sharks, Mason Marchment, who joined San Jose on a five-year deal during the offseason, buried a long shot through some heavy traffic to make it 1-0 at 14:20.
Tested early and often in the opening 20 minutes, Akira Schmid, making his first start of 2026-27, made 10 saves in the period.
“Huge saves,” forward Eetu Luostarinen said. “Great goalie tandem again this year.”
In the second period, the Panthers were put into a prime position to even the score when a high-stick cut Barkov and left him bloodied, which gave way to a four-minute power play.
But after being unable to convert for the majority of the extended man advantage, the Panthers saw their deficit double to 2-0 when Will Smith scored shorthanded at 5:52.
Then, the Panthers suffered their biggest blow of the game.
In a battle along the boards, Barkov, who missed all last season with a right knee injury, went down and had his left leg bend awkwardly. Getting up right away, he immediately headed down the tunnel, throwing his gloves in frustration along the way.
“It's not related to his injury last year at all,” head coach Paul Maurice said of the unfortunate sequence of events. “He'll get looked at. We'll have a good idea by tomorrow afternoon.”
Touching twine a second time, Smith extended San Jose’s lead to 3-0 at 10:37.
Getting the Panthers on the board and planting the seeds of their late comeback late in the second period, Luostarinen beat Yaroslav Askarov on a rebound to make it 3-1 at 17:10.
From then on, momentum swung heavily in Florida’s favor.
"You never want to see your teammate go down, especially your captain,” Luostarinen said. Hopefully he's fine, nothing major. Yeah, obviously, we need guys to step up for him.”
Carrying their newfound juice into the third period, the Panthers pulled within a goal when Luostarinen tipped in a shot from Dmitry Kulikov to make it 3-2 at 5:01. Just 17 seconds after that, Tkachuk beat Askarov with a wrist shot from the slot to make it 3-3.
“I thought our game really got more direct,” Tkachuk said of the late-game surge. “We had more pucks and more guys to the net. That’s how you've got to score in the NHL.”
Not long after officials opted not to make a call after Carter Verhaeghe had his stick slashed out of his hands in wide-open ice, the Sharks found themselves on their own man advantage late in regulation when Kiefer Sherwood drew a roughing call.
But even with 1:43 of that power play carrying over into the extra frame, the Panthers managed to hold their ground on the penalty kill and survive to get the action back to 3-on-3.
At 3:14 of overtime, Luca Cagnoni scored to secure the 4-3 win for the Sharks.
“We had a real good push there and a real good push at the start of the third,” Maurice said. “I think we felt we could come back and win it. We’d rather lose it almost the way we did than lose it on that kill [in overtime]. We got a great kill out of it, but couldn't close it.”
THEY SAID IT
“I think we pushed harder in the third. We got some results. We were on the puck, and we had a lot of chances.” – Eetu Luostarinen on Florida’s late push
“I thought Luosty had a really good training camp, too. He had a whole heck of a lot of chances in Carolina. You just want him to get one to feel good, so he should feel good tonight. I thought did a real nice job getting to the net.” – Paul Maurice on Eetu Luostarinen’s two-goal performance
It's a long year. You gotta grind out points. We would've liked to get the extra one in overtime, especially after that kill, which was awesome, but, you know, all in all, we're down 3-1 going into the third, you'll take that point and run." – Matthew Tkachuk on clawing back to earn a point in San Jose
CATS STATS
- Radko Gudas recorded three blocked shots and four hits.
- Seth Jones skated a team-high 27:43.
- Brady Tkachuk and Boko Imama each had five hits.
- Anton Lundell wont 68.8% of his faceoffs.
- The Panthers led 41-24 in hits.
WHAT’S NEXT?
The trek through California continues.
After getting an extra day off to rest and recharge, the Panthers will return to the ice to battle the Anaheim Ducks at Honda Center on Sunday at 8 p.m. ET.
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