Defenseman Aaron Ekblad had a goal and an assist in his return from an upper-body injury and the Florida Panthers routed the San Jose Sharks 7-2 on Saturday night.

After missing each of the last seven games, top-pair defenseman Aaron Ekblad will return to the blue line for the Florida Panthers when they face-off against the San Jose Sharks at SAP Center on Saturday.

The Panthers, who have won four of their last six, erased an early one-goal deficit with six unanswered goals to coast past the host San Jose Sharks.

There is hope that the Panthers will get defenseman Aaron Ekblad back in the lineup at some point while they're out west. Ekblad has been battling an undisclosed injury and missed each of Florida's past five games.

Matthew Tkachuk scored once in a three-point outing while Aaron Ekblad collected one goal and one assist in his return to the lineup to pace the visiting Florida Panthers to a 7-2 victory over the San Jose Sharks on Saturday.

SUNRISE, Fla. – Florida Panthers defenseman Dmitry Kulikov is skating in his 1,000th National Hockey League regular season game tonight vs. the Los Angeles Kings. The Panthers will honor Kulikov’s milestone in a pregame ceremony prior to Florida’s 6 p.m. (ET) game against the New York Islanders on Sunday, Feb. 2 at Amerant Bank Arena.

The Los Angeles Kings are in town and have practically owned the Florida Panthers over the last several seasons. Just last Wednesday, the Kings scored twice in the third to squeeze out a 2-1 win in Los Angeles.

Now that I’m coming up on 1,000, it still doesn’t make sense. It seems like I just started last year and now it’s Year 16.’

Call it a mixed bag for the Florida Panthers on their West Coast trip. The Panthers went 2-2-0 in their four games out west, beating the Anaheim Ducks 5-2 on Tuesday, falling to the Los Angeles Kings 2-1 on Wednesday, winning against the San Jose Sharks 7-2 on Saturday and losing to the Vegas Golden Knights 4-1 on Sunday.

After backing up Sergei Bobrovsky in San Jose, Spencer Knight will likely get the nod in net against Vegas. Owning a 9-7-1 record with a .907 save percentage, the 23-year-old has been in the zone as of late, going 4-2-0 with a .935 save percentage since Dec. 22.

Cody Ceci and Will Smith scored in the Sharks' 7-2 loss to Panthers, who got goals from seven players in handing San Jose its sixth straight loss Saturday.

Closing out the scoring explosion in the second period, Sam Reinhart took a tap pass from Tkachuk, who went flying through the slot to make it happen, and fired a shot into the back of the cage to put the Panthers up 7-2 at 16:25. In the third period, the Panthers shut the door.