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Florida Panthers Home After Long, and Successful, Road Trip

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Mackie Samoskevich celebrates his first NHL goal with Patrick Giles and their Florida Panthers teammates in a win over the host New York Islanders on Oct. 26. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)

The Florida Panthers finally return to Amerant Bank Arena after a road trip that covered five games in eleven days on two continents. 

According to airmilescalculator.com, they traveled about 10,600 miles. 

Most importantly, the trip featured three wins in New York State and two more in Finland, where Florida’s four Finnish players took center stage.

For the Panthers, it was a case of everything going right. 

Not so for the Stars.

The Panthers have five consecutive road wins (although the second game in Finland was technically a home game) and points in nine of the past ten games. 

The two games in Finland were dominated by Finnish players.

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Fortunately for the local fans, Sasha Barkov returned from injury a game before the trip abroad.

Barkov managed a goal and four assists in his hometown of Tampere.

Before being drafted by the Panthers in 2013, he played two seasons for Tappara, Liiga’s Tampere-based team, which he now co-owns.

Barkov is an icon in Finland.

Florida’s four Finland-born players — Barkov, Anton Lundell, Eetu Luostarinen, and Niko Mikkola combined for nine points.

A Finnish player made the scoresheet on nine of Florida’s ten goals in Tampere.

Sam Reinhart, who is not Finnish, scored six goals on the trip — getting them even-strength, on the power play, short-handed, and into an empty net. 

Reinhart is the only NHL player to have recorded two multi-goal games outside of North America.

Evan Rodrigues set a record of sorts with the fastest goal at the start of a game outside of North America, scoring 28 seconds into the first game in Finland. 

Other fun stuff from the road: Mackie Samoskevich scored his first two NHL goals; A.J. Greer scored his first goal as a Panther, and Tomas Nosek got his first point with Florida. 

“It’s been great,” Paul Maurice said. “This is the longest five-game road trip in NHL history, right?”

Said Barkov: “It was a great week for us. First, we were in New York for a week. In Buffalo – and then came here. Spent a good week here with the team. Obviously, we had a really good chemistry before but it feels like spending so much time together and doing different activities like going to sauna, going to dinners and eating Finnish food together – for some of the guys the first time – that obviously makes your chemistry on the team better.

“The cherry on top was these two really hard games that we played against Dallas and coming up with the win in both games. It was amazing. It tells a lot about our team.”

A lot of good memories, but the Panthers are now home and back to work defending their title.

Not an easy task given the amount of celebrating in the past four months and the usual jet lag associated with overseas travel.

At 9-3-1, the Panthers left Finland ranked second in the NHL only to the Winnipeg Jets.

They will now enjoy a five-game homestand and eight of the next ten in Sunrise.

The next two home games are with the struggling Nashville Predators and Philadelphia Flyers.

This will be followed by an unusual two-game home set with the improved New Jersey Devils.

They can’t afford to get complacent no matter the outcome of those games because Winnipeg comes to town next. 

The following game will be with the very same Jets in Winnipeg.

It has been an enjoyable season so far. 

Now, the real work begins.

ON DECK: GAME 14
NASHVILLE PREDATORS AT FLORIDA PANTHERS 

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