
After a strong first period in which they scored two goals in less than a minute, the San Jose Sharks went south quick and hard Saturday night in a 7-2 loss to the visiting Florida Panthers.
In front of a sellout crowd on Lunar New Year celebration night at SAP Center, the Sharks gave up the early lead on a Nate Schmidt goal, but responded with two of their own from Cody Ceci at 6:50 and Will Smith less than a minute later at 7:22.
The Sharks held that lead until a goal from Florida's Sam Bennett with 5:33 left tied it, and then Aaron Ekblad gave the Panthers the lead again at 3-2 with less than 3 minutes to go until the first intermission.
The defending Stanley Cup Champions continued to rally with four more goals in the second period, scoring a total of six unanswered goals over a span of about 21 minutes.
It was a shared onslaught in goal for the Sharks, with Alexandar Georgiev giving up the first four Panthers scores before Yaroslav Askarov took over in the second and allowed three Florida tallies.
Matthew Tkachuk had two goals and three assists for Florida, and Aleksander Barkov added two goals and two assists.
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