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RECAP
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BOX SCORE
SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) -- Traded to Florida just 10 days earlier,
Mike Vernon didn't have to wait long to haunt his former team.
|  | | Florida's Ray Sheppard, right, tries to muscle around San Jose's Brad Stuart. |
In just his third game with his new club, Vernon stopped 35 San
Jose shots, and Pavel Bure had two goals and an assist Saturday
night to lift the Panthers to a 4-2 victory over the Sharks.
"I thought I'd be more nervous than I was," said Vernon,
18-1-1 against San Jose in his NHL career. "I was really jittery
in my first game for Florida, and I thought I'd be even more that
way tonight. San Jose got a lot of shots tonight, like I knew they
would, but our defense played well."
The play of his new goalie impressed Florida coach Terry Murray.
"Vernon was nothing less than spectacular," he said. "He made
numerous big, big stops that you have to have when playing on the
road. He obviously gave us a chance to win the game."
Bure, who has 28 goals, scored twice in the third period and
moved into second place among goal scorers behind Pittsburgh's
Jaromir Jagr.
Florida scored first with 7:53 gone in the first. Oleg Kvasha
took a shot from 20 feet out that San Jose goalie Steve Shields
stopped, but the puck dribbled beneath his right skate and into the net.
The Panthers scored again at 14:36 of the period. Shields
blocked a shot by Peter Worrell, but former Sharks player Ray
Whitney picked up the puck and scored his 17th from short range.
"They learned a lesson about intensity tonight," Murray said.
"We had eight guys with the flu, but we got our plays going
quickly and we killed some big penalty minutes. A guy like Whitney
was really feeling badly, but he gave it his all, and it showed."
San Jose cut its deficit in half 3:20 into the final period when
defenseman Mike Rathje scored his first goal on a shot from the
right faceoff circle.
However, Bure made it 3-1 at 7:03, scoring from on a rebound of
his own shot.
"Our 'A' guys didn't have their 'A' games tonight," Sharks
coach Darryl Sutter said. "Theirs did, and that was the
difference in the game. Their top guys played substantially better
than ours."
Then, with 7:58 left, San Jose's Todd Harvey rebounded his own
shot and scored to make it 3-2. It was Harvey's first goal since
being acquired from the New York Rangers in the same trade that
sent Vernon to Florida.
Bure answered with an unassisted goal at 13:28 when he picked up
the puck behind the net, curled around and put it past a diving Shields.
"Pavel is a great player," Murray said. "He has incredible
quickness. He's the only player who could make a goal like that."
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ALSO SEE
NHL Scoreboard
Florida Clubhouse
San Jose Clubhouse
RECAPS
NY Islanders 5
Boston 2
Buffalo 7
Ottawa 4
NY Rangers 5
Toronto 3
Washington 3
Atlanta 0
Detroit 5
Anaheim 3
New Jersey 4
Phoenix 3
Nashville 6
Chicago 3
Philadelphia 6
Pittsburgh 2
St. Louis 4
Vancouver 2
Calgary 3
Tampa Bay 2
Florida 4
San Jose 2
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