Panthers Complete Finland Sweep, Beat Stars, 4-2

The Florida Panthers swept the Dallas Stars in the Global Series in Finland, with their Finnish players earning points on nine of their 10 goals in the two-game set.

The Florida Panthers swept the Dallas Stars in their two-game set in Finland, earning a 6-4 win on Saturday to close it out.

A.J. Greer scored the go-ahead goal with a blast of a slap shot off of a face-off 2:32 into the third period, courtesy of a slick kick-over from Tomas Nosek.

That was the lone Panthers goal of the trip that a Finnish player did not register a point on.

It was a storybook weekend for the Florida Finns: Aleksander Barkov put up a goal and four assists collectively in his hometown of Tampere, Anton Lundell scored a goal on Friday, Niko Mikkola picked up an assist in each of the two games, Eetu Luostarinen got an assist on the game’s final goal — and they did it in front of droves of friends, family members and people who now idolize them as hometown heroes.

For the second game in a row, Evan Rodrigues got the scoring started by deflecting a point shot, this time from Niko Mikkola with 5:15 to go in the first period.

Matthew Tkachuk deflected an Uvis Balinskis shot past Jake Oettinger 8:47 into the second period on the power play to give the Panthers a two-goal lead.

Evgenii Dadonov got Dallas on the board with 8:38 to go in the second period, beating Spencer Knight with a wrist shot that squeaked through his five-hole on the power play. Then, 34 seconds later, Matt Duchene banked home a Miro Heiskanen rebound on his backhand to tie the game.

After Greer’s goal, Florida shut things down in the third period — something that has become commonplace under coach Paul Maurice.

By the time Dallas pulled Casey DeSmith for the extra attacker with 1:38 to go, the Panthers were outshooting the Stars

Sam Reinhart scored the empty-net goal with 59 seconds to go to seal away the game and extend his goal streak to four games. Reinhart has points in his past five games, totaling five goals and nine points in that stretch.

Knight made 23 saves on 25 shots in the win and extended his personal winning streak to five games.

The Panthers swept their five-game road trip, which they started with a three-game set in New York before Finnishing it off in their captain’s home country, and they will now have a five-day break before returning to the ice at home against the Nashville Predators on Nov. 7.