Miro Heiskanen of the Dallas Stars and Aleksander Barkovof the Florida Panthers will face off in in … [+] Finland this weekend as part of the NHL Global Series. (Photo by Joel Auerbach/Getty Images)

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European hockey fans embrace every opportunity to watch NHL hockey in their own backyards. But the star power for this weekend’s pair of NHL Global Series games in Tampere, Finland should ratchet the excitement to another level.

Center Aleksander Barkov and defenseman Miro Heiskanen are two of the best players ever to come out of the northern nation of just over 5 million people, where hockey is practically a religion. And while the Finns have had tremendous success in international hockey by emphasizing a disciplined, team-first approach to the game, Barkov and Heiskanen are sublime talents in the prime of their careers.

They also happen to play on two of the best teams in the NHL. So this weekend’s matchups between the Florida Panthers and the Dallas Stars should be big-league tilts that showcase the very best of hockey’s top professional league.

Barkov Leads Panthers At NHL Global Series

Barkov, of course, is the captain of the Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers. When his team defeated the Edmonton Oilers in seven games last June. became the first Finn ever to captain a Cup-winner.

The hulking 29-year-old center was born in Tampere and is a two-time winner of the Frank J. Selke Trophy as the NHL’s best defensive forward. In 2018-19, he also won the Lady Byng Trophy as the league’s most gentlemanly player.

After suffering a scary-looking lower-body injury in Florida’s second game of the season, Barkov returned to action in the Panthers’ 5-2 win in Buffalo on Monday. He chipped in a goal and an assist before the team jetted to Europe for this weekend’s matches.

Showing no signs of a Stanley Cup hangover even while their captain was injured, the Panthers are 7-3-1 through their first 11 games. They led the Eastern Conference standings going into Wednesday night’s action.

Three other Finnish-born players have also suited up for Florida this season. Center Anton Lundell, 23, is a native of Espoo and carries the nickname ‘Baby Barkov’ while 26-year-old bottom-six forward Eetu Luostarinen shares Barkov’s birthday, Sept. 2. On the blue line, 6-foot-6 defender Niko Mikkola proved to be a valuable addition when he signed as a free agent before last season.

GM Bill Zito Has Finnish Ties

Florida general manager Bill Zito is U.S. born-and-raised, but has his own ties to Finland. He briefly spent time with a third-division team as a player in the late 1980s, then returned in 1995 for five years, while starting his sports agency Acme World Sports with Finnish native Markus Lehto.

Zito also got his start in NHL management while serving as assistant general manager of the Columbus Blue Jackets under another Finn, Jarmo Kekalainen.

Heiskanen Leads Stars At NHL Global Series

As for Heiskanen, the big claims to fame for the 25-year-old from Espoo are his superb skating and a motor that allows him to be among the NHL’s ice-time leaders every season. Now in his seventh year, he has averaged 24:26 across his career, and is as astute at defending and breaking up plays as he is as putting up points.

In his second season in 2019-20, Heiskanen put up 26 points in 27 games in the playoff bubble as the Stars reached the Stanley Cup Final before falling to the Tampa Bay Lightning. Dallas has reached the Western Conference Final in each of the last two years and is considered a serious Cup contender in 2024-25.

The Stars are also off to a strong start, with a record of 7-2-0 through their first nine games.

In addition to Heiskanen, Dallas’s lineup also features 30-year-old Esa Lindell of Vantaa, Finland, a more defense-minded defender. Up front, 27-year-old Roope Hintz of Nokia, Finland holds down the top-line center spot, skating between dazzling Jason Robertson and rookie-of-the-year contender Logan Stankoven.

Finland At 4 Nations Face-Off

Barkov, Heiskanen and Lindell were three of the first six players named to Finland’s ‘4 Nations Face-Off’ roster back in June. The other Finland-born Global Series participants will also likely be named to that team.

Then, they’ll be teammates rather than rivals. The event will take place in February, 2025 in Montreal and Boston as a warm-up event for the return of NHL players to the 2026 Winter Olympics in Italy.

And while the final roster decisions will be difficult for the management groups of Canada and the United States, who have a plethora of top talent to choose from, the Finns will likely need to rely on the team structure that serves them so well in international play if they hope to be successful.

The ‘4 Nations Faceoff’ will feature only NHL players. So former NHL forward Jere Lehtinen, who is now the GM of the Finnish national team, will need to build his 23-man roster from a list of just 31 Finland-born players who have skated in the NHL this season.

Earlier in October, the New Jersey Devils took a pair of wins from the Buffalo Sabres in the first 2024 NHL Global Series games in Prague, Czechia. This weekend’s games will take place Friday, Nov. 1 (2 p.m. ET) and Saturday, Nov. 2 (noon ET) at the sparkling three-year-old Nokia Arena in Tampere. The 13,000-seat venue is home to club teams Tappera and Ilves of Finland’s SM-Liiga. It also hosted the IIHF World Championship in 2022 and 2023.