Will Smith made penalty situations look like bonus possessions for San Jose. He scored shorthanded, struck again on the power play and helped the Sharks build a 3-0 lead over Florida on Thursday. Then the Panthers staged a three-goal response, forcing San Jose to retrieve its advantage the hard way before Luca Cagnoni’s overtime finish secured a 4-3 victory at SAP Center.
Smith’s night gives Bay Area hockey an inviting starting point. San Jose’s special teams created offense rather than merely limiting danger. Florida’s answer is the necessary fine print: those opportunities can give the Sharks a head start, but they do not make the rest of the game optional.
Mason Marchment opened the scoring with the opening-period clock showing 14:20, giving San Jose a useful beginning before Smith took over the second. The first of his goals came from a play that began with Macklin Celebrini taking the puck away from Matthew Tkachuk. That turnover produced a shorthanded 2-on-1, and Celebrini’s pass allowed Smith to finish with a wrist shot 5:52 into the period.
That sequence matters because it joined defensive responsibility to immediate offense. The Sharks did not need a long possession or a complicated setup. Celebrini created the turnover, the numerical advantage appeared, and Smith finished before Florida could recover. A penalty kill had become a scoring chance in a hurry.
Smith’s second goal arrived at 10:37, this time with San Jose on the power play. Celebrini’s wraparound attempt generated a rebound, and Smith got the puck over the goal line. Luca Cagnoni also assisted. Smith ended the night with two goals and a helper, while Celebrini supplied three assists and seven shots, a substantial workload in a game that eventually required extra time.
The two goals came in different situations, yet both rewarded anticipation. Smith was ready to attack after the shorthanded takeaway and ready to pounce when the power-play attempt did not finish cleanly. That gives San Jose two ways to turn special teams into an attacking asset: pressure the opponent into a mistake, then remain alert for the second chance.
Florida erased that three-goal advantage. Eetu Luostarinen scored on the Panthers’ power play as the middle-period clock reached 17:10. He scored again 5:01 into the third, and Tkachuk tied the game at 5:18—only 17 seconds after Luostarinen’s second goal. The entire margin vanished in a sequence so brisk that San Jose barely had time to process one problem before the next arrived.
That comeback deserves more weight than a routine footnote about a blown lead. Florida scored once with the man advantage, once at even strength and then again almost immediately after the restart of play. The Panthers’ ability to convert that stretch into a tie showed how quickly a game can change when scoring chances arrive in clusters.
The shot totals offer useful context without settling the argument. San Jose held a 32-26 edge, and Yaroslav Askarov made 23 saves on 26 Florida attempts. Akira Schmid stopped 28 of 32 for the Panthers. The Sharks created enough to win, but their advantage was hardly insulated; Florida’s comeback turned a comfortable-looking score into a contest that had to be decided after regulation.
Florida was also missing important pieces during the night. Gustav Forsling was scratched shortly before the game. Florida then lost Aleksander Barkov during the middle period; he did not return.
