This was a close one until the last few minutes, as the Sharks are back to their losing ways and fall 4-1 to the Florida Panthers.
The Sharks get off to another great start with the first goal by Alexander Barabanov from Erik Karlsson early in the first period. With that assist, Erik Karlsson now has 70 points on the season, becoming the fastest defenseman in 33 years to reach the 70-point mark in a season.
Early in the second period, Jonah Gadjovich flattened Brandon Montour into the boards, resulting in Givani Smith dropping the gloves and fighting Gadjovich. The Panthers followed that up with Sam Reinhart’s first goal of the game to tie it at one. Reinhart added another goal in the final minute of the second period to give the Panthers their first lead of the night. In addition, Logan Couture was hit into the end boards during the second period, was slow to get up, and had to head straight for the dressing room, but was luckily back in the game a few minutes after heading into the dressing room.
This game officially slipped away from the Sharks in the last two minutes as Eric Staal potted two empty-netters to seal the victory for the Panthers. These were all while the Sharks were on a four-minute power play after Aaron Ekblad high-sticked Timo Meier.
Kaapo Kahkonen received his third straight start in net and had another solid performance, recording a total of 38 saves. If Kahkonen keeps up his current level of play, he will definitely take over the top spot in the Sharks’ goalie tandem.
Overall, this is a game that the Sharks could’ve and should’ve won, but it doesn’t surprise me that they fell apart in the last few minutes. Team Teal closes out its last long road trip of the season on Super Bowl Sunday morning in Washington against the Capitals at 10:30 am PT.
Sources: NBC Sports Bay Area/California, NHL App, Curtis Pashelka via Twitter
You can further support my blogs by checking out my merch (sample pictured below): CPF Store
No comments:
Post a Comment