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Anton Lundell put in charge of showing Panthers around hometown of Helsinki

The Florida Panthers were in good spirits when they arrived in Finland on Tuesday.

Florida will face the Dallas Stars in the NHL Global Series games taking place on Friday and Saturday in Tampere, the hometown of Panthers captain Sasha Barkov.

First, the Cats will spend a couple days in Helsinki, Finland’s capital and the hometown of Anton Lundell.

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While Barkov will be in charge of showing the team around when they arrive in Tampere, the Panthers are currently in the hands of Lundell.

It’ll be up to the young Finn to show the Panthers a good time on their day off Wednesday.

“I don’t want to reveal my secrets yet,” Lundell said with a grin.

The team received a taste of what Finland had to offer after arriving on Tuesday, but soon they’ll be completely in Lundell’s hands.

Without giving away too much, Lundell said there will be some good food, fun sightseeing and, of course, multiple saunas.

“It’s been a little stressful, to be honest,” Lundell said. “Barky told me, ‘You take care of Helsinki’ and I was like, ‘Alright, let’s do it.’”

So far, it sounds like the North American Panthers players are enjoying some of the Finnish culture they’ve been exposed to.

That, of course, includes the food.

“I like the fish, the salmon,” said Matthew Tkachuk. “It seems like a lot of traditional dishes here, the salmon with the rye bread, we had a few of those that I liked, and then the one dessert that Barky is gonna have to explain (the name). He said it was a cake he had in school, that was a good one.”

Whatever happens on Lundell’s tour of Helsinki, it should provide some fun content for us to enjoy down the road.

Surely, the Panthers are going to have fun, and as we've established, they’ll be well fed.

“I’m happy to show my favorite places here to the guys and for them to try some Finnish traditional things,” Lundell said. “It’s going to be awesome.”

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