RECAP: Panthers 3, Sharks 1

SUNRISE, Fla. – Sam Reinhart scored for the fifth straight game and Anthony Stolarz made 27 saves in his season debut to help lead the Florida Panthers to a 3-1 win over the San Jose Sharks at Amerant Bank Arena on Tuesday.

With the win, Florida improved to 3-3-0.

“It’s obviously exciting,” said Stolarz, who owns a 9-1-0 record in his career against San Jose. “That’s why you work hard in practice, just to stay sharp so that when your name’s called you’re ready to go. I definitely had a little jitters going out there and hearing the crowd, but obviously it’s a familiar team that I’ve played a couple times before.”

Even without captain Aleksander Barkov, who missed the game due to an illness, the Panthers were able to put forth one of their most-complete efforts in the early goings of this season.

“We were much faster tonight in our offensive game, our attack and driving pucks to the net,” head coach Paul Maurice said. “We’re not expecting perfect games. … They really stuck to an idea. We just looked a lot faster offensively. I’m happy with it. That’s a good NHL win.”

While there were no goals to speak of in the first period, the Panthers had their fair share of looks. After 20 minutes, they led 16-9 in shots on goal. Of their 31 shot attempts against the Sharks, 13 of them originated from high-danger areas, according to NaturalStatTrick.com.

But even though it was the Panthers applying seemingly all the pressure, the Sharks broke the ice in the second period when Fabian Zetterlund took a pass from William Eklund and cashed in on a shot from the left side of the net to make it 1-0 at 8:30.

Getting that goal back in a hurry – much to the delight of the home fans – Carter Verhaeghe fired a quick shot from the right side of the net that squeaked through Mackenzie Blackwood’s pads and into the cage to get the scored evened up 1-1 at 9:48.

“I think that definitely is big for momentum,” Verhaeghe said. “They’re probably feeling good after they get the lead. Scoring right after definitely takes some wind out of their sails. I think it just shows we came ready to play in the second.”

Fresh off being named the NHL’s Third Star of the Week, Reinhart gave the Panthers their first lead of the game when he pounced on a rebound on the power play after a shot from Oliver Ekman-Larsson and sent the rebound past Blackwood to make it 2-1 at 15:23.

Tied for second in the NHL in goals (7), Reinhart is off to the best start of his career.

“I don’t think I’ve ever had [a streak like this] at this time of the year,” Reinhart said. “It’s nice. When it doesn’t go at the start of the year, it’s a lot worse than when it’s in the middle of the year because you’ve got nothing to fall back on. It just adds to that pressure. To be able to start like this is obviously nice.”

Using all 6-foot-6 of his body to come up with a crucial save in the third period, Stolarz locked in on Anthony Duclair and sprawled out to rob the former Panther on a backhand attempt right around the cage.

On the penalty kill late in regulation, Stolarz came up in the clutch once again by keeping his cool under pressure. With chaos unfolding in front of him after the Sharks fired a shot on net, he managed to find a precariously loose puck in the blue paint and cover it with his blocker with 3:14 left in regulation.

“I was just trying to pounce on it and cover it,” Stolarz said. “I saw, I think [Alexander] Barabanov, was kind of playing with it with his hand, so I kind of wanted to just grab it before he sent it over to someone or hit it off one of our guys. You do whatever you can to keep it out of the net.”

After successfully killing off the remainder of San Jose’s power play, the Panthers put the game away when Kevin Stenlund sunk an empty-netter to make it 3-1 with 1.5 seconds left on the clock.

“We went into the third with the lead and I thought we did a good job keeping it,” Verhaeghe said. “We want to be a good third-period team. We want to be able to play with the lead. I think we did a good job of keeping their shots limited and playing well.”

THEY SAID IT

“It’s just a mindset and just being ready. You want to play as many games as possible, but at the same time, too, you have to stay sharp, be ready and just bide your time. Obviously Bob’s (Sergei Bobrovsky) has been playing well this year, so we just want to continue to work hard.” – Anthony Stolarz on looking ahead to future starts as the schedule gets more jampacked

“Sometimes the puck falls for you. Playing with some pretty good players, finding the areas, and you get some bounces here and there. A bit of a streak.” – Sam Reinhart on his scoring spree

“He’s a big guy back there. He makes timely saves. There’s not a lot of net to shoot at. He was huge. He made awesome saves and definitely kept us in the game. It was nice to see him make his debut.” – Carter Verhaeghe on Anthony Stolarz shining in his first Panthers start

CATS STATS

- The Panthers won their ninth straight game against the Sharks.

- Matthew Tkachuk recorded his third multi-assist game of the season.

- Anton Lundell won 66.67% of his faceoffs.

- Florida led 27-16 in scoring chances at 5-on-5, per NaturalStatTrick.com.

- Anthony Stolarz made five high-danger saves.

WHAT’S NEXT?

The Panthers will have a few days to rest up before wrapping up their first homestand of the season with a tilt against the Seattle Kraken at Amerant Bank Arena on Saturday at 6 p.m. ET.

For tickets, click here.