San Jose Sharks versus Florida Panthers on Saturday January 25th 2024 at SAP Center. (via FlaPanthers/x)

By Madison Montez

SAN JOSE- The Sharks looked to snap a five game losing streak in Saturday night’s matchup against the Stanley Cup winning Florida Panthers but ended up extending their losing streak to six games in a 7-2 loss at SAP Center.

The goalie matchup was Alexandar Georgiev versus Sergei Bobrovsky. Friday, the Sharks announced the transactions of sending Collin Graf to the Barracuda and the recalls of Scott Sabourin and Colin White. Prior to Saturday’s game, Colin White signed a one year-two way contract with San Jose.

After a failed clearing attempt by Marc-Edouard Vlasic, Nate Schimdt picked up the puck to score his fourth of the season, unassisted, at 5:47 of the first. San Jose quickly answered back at 6:50 when Cody Ceci tipped in Jake Walman’s shot from the blueline.

They took their first lead of the game a minute and 28 seconds later when Will Smith picked up the puck on a rebound off the boards. The rebound was off of Mario Ferraro’s shot, with Fabian Zetterlund registering the secondary assist.

The Panthers tied the game at 14:26 after a scrum in front of the net, causing Georgiev to lose sight of the puck. Sam Bennet scoring his 15th of the season, A.J Greer and Niko Mikkola registering the assists. After being injured for months, Aaron Ekblad made sure to make his presence known by giving his team the lead. At 17:08, Florida took a 3-2 lead off of a snap shot at the blue line, Matthew Tkachuk registering the lone assist.

A.J Greer scored on a breakaway at 3:01 to extend their lead to two. Tomas Nosek registering the lone assist. This led to Warsosfsky making the decision to replace Alexandar Georgiev with Yaroslav Askarov.

Tyler Toffoli took a slashing call at 5:17 and the eighth ranked PP team in the league got to work. Just 18 seconds in, Matthew Tkachuk scored his 15th of the season, Aleksander Barkov and Aaron Ekblad registering the assists.

After attacking in San Jose’s zone, Jesper Boqvist sends one home to make the score 6-2. Anton Lundell and Carter Verhaeghe registering the assists. Florida didn’t take their foot off the gas pedal scoring for the fourth time in the second. Sam Reinhart scored his 29th of the season, both Matthew Tkachuck and Aleksander Barkov tallying their second assists of the night.

The Sharks will be back in action on Monday to take on the Pittsburgh Penguins. The last time these two teams faced off was on November 16th where the Sharks fell 4-3 in a shootout.