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.

The Florida Panthers sure bounced back from their blown lead in Los Angeles in a big way on Saturday. Skating against the struggling San Jose Sharks, Florida was dominant for much of the night, eventually earning an impressive 7-2 victory.

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.

Doughty plays about 24 minutes in his season debut but the Kings fall, 3-0, and have lost seven of their past nine games, scoring just 15 goals in that stretch.

Defenseman Aaron Ekblad had a goal and an assist in his return from an ... Matthew Tkachuk had a goal and two assists, and Nate Schmidt, Sam Bennett, A.J. Greer, Jesper Boqvist and Sam Reinhart also scored. Sergei Bobrovsky made 22 saves.