TAMPERE, Finland – Florida captain Aleksander Barkov had a goal and three assists in his return to his hometown, Sam Reinhart scored twice and the Panthers beat the Dallas Stars 6-4 on Friday night.
Finnish players put on a show. Barkov had four points, Anton Lundell had a goal, and Niko Mikkola had an assist for Florida, while Esa Lindell had a goal and an assist for the Stars. All seven Finns on the rosters started the game.
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Aaron Ekblad had three assists for Florida, which won its fourth straight. Evan Rodrigues and Mackie Samoskevich also scored for the Panthers, who got 32 saves from Sergei Bobrovsky.
Tyler Seguin, Mavrik Bourque and Jamie Benn scored for the Stars. Matt Duchene and Ilya Lyubushkin each had two assists, and Jake Oettinger stopped 22 shots.
Takeaways
Panthers: Florida’s players arrived in robes and sandals, a nod to Finland’s love of saunas. The personalized robes were a gift from Panthers president of hockey operations and general manager Bill Zito.
Stars: Dallas gave up a goal to Rodrigues 28 seconds into the game and the defense never got settled. The six goals allowed tied the NHL record for a game outside of North America; Columbus gave up six to Colorado in Tampere on Nov. 4, 2022.
Key moment
Barkov became the sixth European player to score in his hometown during a regular-season game contested outside North America, joining Patrik Laine (Tampere), Tomas Hertl (Prague), Niklas Kronwall (Stockholm), Fredrik Claesson (Stockholm) and Johnny Oduya (Stockholm).
Key stat
Reinhart — now with nine goals this season — got his third short-handed goal; 11 teams entered Friday without one this season. Since the start of last season Reinhart is the NHL leader in power-play goals (29) and short-handed goals (eight).
Up next
The teams meet again in Tampere on Saturday. It’ll count as a Florida home game.
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AP NHL: https://apnews.com/hub/nhl