Smith scores twice, Sharks recover for OT win against Panthers

SAN JOSE -- Will Smith scored two goals and also set up the overtime winner for the San Jose Sharks, who recovered to defeat the Florida Panthers 4-3 at SAP Center on Thursday.

Smith skated into the zone and passed across to Luca Cagnoni, who beat Florida goalie Akira Schmid five-hole from the left circle at 3:14 of overtime. It was the 21-year-old defenseman's first NHL goal (10th game).

"Pretty unreal. Probably the best goal of my life," Cagnoni said. "Hard to write one better than an overtime winner. People dream of playing (in the NHL) and stuff like that. I feel like I reenacted that a couple times, but (it's an) unreal feeling."

Macklin Celebrini had three assists, and Mason Marchment scored in his debut for the Sharks, who were playing their season opener. Yaroslav Askarov made 23 saves.

"I thought, obviously, that first period was fast, the fastest game that I've probably seen coaching this team, and you know our guys didn't back down," San Jose coach Ryan Warsofsky said. "We can't take that many penalties (22 penalty minutes), but I like the resiliency of our group."

Eetu Luostarinen scored twice for the Panthers, who were coming off a 1-0 overtime win against the Carolina Hurricanes in their season opener on Tuesday. Matthew Tkachuk also scored, and Schmid made 28 saves in his debut with Florida.

Captain Aleksander Barkov left the game at 8:07 of the second period after going down awkwardly while battling for the puck in the right corner during a power play. After getting up, he immediately asked for the Zamboni doors to be opened and threw his gloves down on the floor while walking to the dressing room.

The 31-year-old forward was playing in just his second game for the Panthers this season after missing all of 2025-26 because of a right knee injury he sustained in the first day of that season's training camp. He had surgery the day after the injury to repair his MCL and ACL.

"He'll get looked at tomorrow," Panthers coach Paul Maurice said. "It's not related to his injury last year at all. We will have a good idea by tomorrow afternoon."

Defenseman Gustav Forsling was also a late scratch due to an upper-body injury.

Marchment put the Sharks up 1-0 at 14:20 of the first period. He got the puck along the right boards, curled above the circle and scored with a wrist shot through traffic that snuck under Schmid's pads.

Marchment signed a five-year, $33.75 million contract with San Jose on July 1.

"The fans brought the energy," Celebrini said. "We were going with all their support and how loud they were cheering. So that was great to hear."

Smith pushed the lead to 2-0 with a short-handed goal at 5:52 of the second period. Celebrini stole the puck from Tkachuk, skated in on a 2-on-1, and passed over to Smith for a wrist shot that beat Schmid over his blocker from the right circle.

"I trusted (Celebrini) to make the wall play and then he kind of took off with it, and I think they were a little bit gassed at the end of a power play, so we got a little bit of a break," Smith said.

Smith scored his second goal of the period on the power play to make it 3-0 at 10:37. Celebrini's wraparound attempt was stopped by the diving stick of Schmid, but Smith was able to poke it over the goal line before the goalie could cover it.

Luostarinen scored his own power-play goal at 17:10 to cut the lead to 3-1. Aaron Ekblad's shot from the point went off Askarov's blocker to the right, where Luostarinen swiped it in off the post with his backhand.

Luostarinen was credited with his second goal at 5:01 of the third period to make it 3-2. Dmitry Kulikov's shot from the point hit off Luostarinen before then deflecting in off Cagnoni.

"I think we pushed harder in the third and we got some results," Luostarinen said. "We got the puck and had some chances to be able to bury those two."

Tkachuk scored 17 seconds later to tie the game 3-3. Sam Bennett stole the puck from Michael Misa along the left boards and sent a backhand pass to Tkachuk, who beat Askarov glove side with a shot off the post from the slot.

"I think we started a little flat there in the third," Celebrini said. "We knew they were going to come on and push, so I think we did a good job weathering it."

NOTES: Maurice said that he expects Forsling to play in their next game at the Anaheim Ducks on Sunday. ... Sharks forward Ivar Stenberg, the No. 2 pick in the 2026 NHL Draft, played 13:35 in his NHL debut.