{"id":417120,"date":"2026-01-20T03:18:17","date_gmt":"2026-01-20T03:18:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/417120\/"},"modified":"2026-01-20T03:18:17","modified_gmt":"2026-01-20T03:18:17","slug":"will-smith-scores-as-the-sharks-spoil-matthew-tkachuks-return-by-beating-the-panthers-4-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/417120\/","title":{"rendered":"Will Smith scores as the Sharks spoil Matthew Tkachuk’s return by beating the Panthers 4-1"},"content":{"rendered":"

SUNRISE, Fla. — – Will Smith<\/a> scored in his second consecutive game after missing a month because of injury, and the San Jose Sharks<\/a> spoiled Matthew Tkachuk<\/a>‘s season debut by beating the two-time defending champion Florida Panthers<\/a> 4-1 on Monday night in a game highlighted by a rare goalie fight<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Florida’s Sergei Bobrovsky<\/a> beelined out of his crease and all the way down the ice to take on San Jose’s Alex Nedeljkovic<\/a>, who had inserted himself into a scrum in the corner with 14 minutes left. Fans chanted, “Bobby! Bobby!” and cheered the netminder nicknamed “Bob” who has backstopped the team to back-to-back Stanley Cup titles.<\/p>\n

The second meeting between the teams this season, and first since Nov. 8, got increasingly chippy with pushing and shoving after whistles and more than a few punches thrown.<\/p>\n

Between the whistles, the Sharks also got goals from defensemen Vincent Desharnais<\/a> and Mario Ferraro<\/a> and 36 saves from Nedeljkovic. Barclay Goodrow<\/a> sealed it with an empty-netter, and San Jose won hours after general manager Mike Grier signaled his team is going for it this season following a lengthy rebuild by acquiring winger Kiefer Sherwood<\/a> in a trade with Vancouver.<\/p>\n

Tkachuk skated just under 21 minutes and had three shots on goal in his first game since helping Florida repeat<\/a> and hoisting the Cup in June. The 28-year-old winger, who was picked to play for the U.S. at the Olympics next month in Milan, underwent surgery<\/a> last summer to deal with a sports hernia and torn adductor muscle.<\/p>\n

Eetu Luostarinen<\/a> scored the Panthers’ goal. Bobrovsky allowed three on 27 shots, giving up several juicy rebounds that San Jose capitalized on.<\/p>\n

Puck drop was moved up an hour<\/a> to a 6 p.m. EST start after the Miami Hurricanes made the college football national title game, which was being played in their nearby home stadium.<\/p>\n

Up next<\/p>\n

Sharks: Wrap up their road trip Tuesday night at Tampa Bay.<\/p>\n

Panthers: Open a three-game trip Thursday night at Winnipeg.<\/p>\n

——<\/p>\n

AP NHL: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/nhl<\/a>br\/]<\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2026 ESPN Internet Ventures. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SUNRISE, Fla. — – Will Smith scored in his second consecutive game after missing a month because of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":417121,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5127],"tags":[52176,266,57,5,4,519,168,5306,5305,1780],"class_list":{"0":"post-417120","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-jose-sharks","8":"tag-52176","9":"tag-espn","10":"tag-florida-panthers","11":"tag-hockey","12":"tag-nhl","13":"tag-san-jose","14":"tag-san-jose-sharks","15":"tag-sanjose","16":"tag-sanjosesharks","17":"tag-sharks"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/115925267571215255","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417120","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=417120"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/417120\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/417121"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=417120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=417120"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=417120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}