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The Dallas Stars and Florida Panthers have taken a break from their North American portion of the NHL schedule to play two games at Nokia Arena in Tampere for the 2024 NHL Global Series Finland presented by Fastenal.

The Florida Panthers won the first game 6-4 on Friday. The next game is Saturday.

Stars defenseman Esa Lindell will be keeping a blog this week with NHL.com throughout the Global Series, giving fans a taste of what life is likepre on the ground as they go through the experience in Finland. The defenseman’s fourth entry was written after the loss in which Lindell joined the other six Finnish players on the ice for an emotional pregame introduction ceremony and in which he had a goal, on a special from Jason Robertson, and an assist.

This is a night I will remember forever.

To hear all of the Finnish players introduced, how loud it got and then to hear our own anthem and how cool that was, with the United States anthem; it wasn’t the typical start for a game. But it was a night to remember in every way. It’s something that I won’t forget.

It’s not the score we wanted, but we have to bounce back tomorrow.

I didn’t know that me and Miro Heiskanen and Roope Hintz would all start the game together. That was really nice. When I saw that Florida was going to put all their Finns out, Aleksander Barkov, Anton Lundell, Eetu Luostarinen and Niko Mikkola, then I assumed we were going to do the same. It was pretty cool to have all the Finns out there like that for the introductions and the start of the game.

Plus, Jere Lehtinen and Teppo Numminen, huge guys in Finnish hockey dropped the puck. I think the whole thing was very good.

The goal, of course, was memorable. It was my first goal of the season, and I don’t score a lot, so every goal is great to have. They are all to be remembered and today was most definitely a special one. It was kind of a tap-in after that sick pass from ‘Robo.’ I was more nervous that I was going to miss this one. I was hoping he saw me going there and he did.

We play again tomorrow and I’m glad. I think the game will be a lot easier. There were so many emotions before this game, before the puck dropped. We need to be better tomorrow. We know that. We need to be more upset tomorrow and get to our game as fast as we can.

We have do the basic things. We have to win battles, we have to execute, put passes on the tape. We have to work as a five-man unit out there. We have to be better on special teams. We just have to be better at everything, I would say, and we will be, I hope.