Aleksander Barkov enjoyed his homecoming in a big way Friday, leading the Florida Panthers to a 6-4 victory over the Dallas Stars in an NHL Global Series game Friday at Tampere, Finland.
The Tampere native notched a goal and three assists as Florida won its fourth straight. The Panthers’ captain has six points since his return Monday from a lower-body injury that sidelined him for eight games.
He was not the only Finn to find the back of the net, either. Florida’s Anton Lundell scored his sixth goal of the season, and Niko Mikkola added an assist. Esa Lindell notched a goal and an assist for the Stars, who saw their two-game winning streak end.
Florida jumped out early and never looked back, with Barkov getting the secondary assist on Evan Rodrigues’ second goal of the season. Rodrigues, who last scored in Florida’s season opener on Oct. 8, redirected a blueline blast from Aaron Ekblad to beat Dallas goalie Jake Oettinger just 28 seconds into the game.
That was the first of three assists for Ekblad.
Oettinger, who entered the game with a 1.84 goals-against average, gave up a season-high six goals on 28 shots.
Rodrigues got an assist less than seven minutes later on Barkov’s second goal of the season that made it 2-0. Sam Reinhart also assisted.
Reinhart added two goals for a three-point performance. His third short-handed goal came in the second period, and he added an even-strength goal, his 11th overall, midway through the third. Barkov assisted on both.
Dallas cut the Panthers’ lead to 2-1 on Tyler Seguin’s fifth of the season midway through the first period and 3-2 on Lindell’s just 92 seconds into the second period.
However, Florida never wavered. Lundell scored a power-play goal with 4:08 left in the first period to make it 3-1. Mikkola assisted along with A.J. Greer on Mackie Samoskevich’s with 17:29 remaining in the contest to make it 5-2.
Dallas scored twice in the final five minutes, with rookie Mavrik Bourque getting his first career goal and Jamie Benn getting one past netminder Sergei Bobrovsky, who made 32 saves in the win.
These same two teams will conclude the series Saturday in Tampere.
