Five Florida Panthers thoughts as team returns from Finland for five-game homestand

After a week-and-a-half on the road, including five days in Finland for the NHL Global Series, the Florida Panthers are back in South Florida and ready to be home for a bit.

A five-game homestand starts on Thursday against the Nashville Predators and continues with games against the Philadelphia Flyers (Saturday), two against the New Jersey Devils (Nov. 12 and 14) and Winnipeg Jets (Nov. 16).

They hope to continue the success they had on the road.

Florida won all five games on the past road trip with, wins over the New York Rangers, New York Islanders and Buffalo Sabres before sweeping the Dallas Stars in their two games in Tampere, Finland on Friday and Saturday to improve to 9-3-1 on the season.

As the Panthers get settled back home, here are five thoughts on the team through the first month of the season.

1). Sam Reinhart is picking up where he left off last season — and possibly getting better. Reinhart is coming off a career season in which he scored 57 goals, tallied 94 points and set the Panthers’ single-season record for power-play goals (27) and overall special-teams goals (32). It resulted in him getting a eight-year, $69 million contract extension this offseason.

There were questions about how he would follow up on such a massive season.

Well, he’s already off to a faster start than last season.

Reinhart entered Monday tied for the NHL lead in goal (10) and points (21). It’s the most points ever by a Panthers player through the first 13 games of a season.

He has at least one point in 11 of Florida’s 13 games, including seven multi-point outings.

And he’s scoring in all three phases just like last season. Of his 10 goals, five are at even strength, two are on the power play and three are shorthanded.

2). The Panthers aren’t just winning; they’re doing so against top teams. Of Florida’s nine wins so far, seven have come against teams that were in the Stanley Cup playoffs last season.

In addition to the wins on the road trip over the Stars, Rangers and Islanders, Florida also has two wins over the Boston Bruins and one against the Vegas Golden Knights. The Panthers also took the Vancouver Canucks to overtime.

3). Aleksander Barkov didn’t miss a beat after injury layoff and had a homecoming to remember. The Panthers’ captain missed eight games with a lower-body injury after crashing into the boards trying to protect an empty net on Oct. 10 against the Ottawa Senators. He drew back into the lineup on Oct. 28 at the Sabres and scored his first goal of the season as part of Florida’s 5-2 win before the Panthers flew to Finland for a pair of games in Barkov’s hometown Tampere.

Barkov and his Finnish teammates — forwards Anton Lundell and Eetu Luostarinen as well as defenseman Niko Mikkola also hail from the country — gave the home crowd a lot to celebrate.

All but one of the Panthers’ 10 goals in the two games in Finland featured a Finnish player either scoring or logging an assist.

Barkov tallied four points (one goal, three assists) in the first win on Friday to become just the second Finnish player with a four-point game in the country. He followed with another assist on Saturday.

As for the other Finns: Lundell had a power-play goal in Game 1; Mikkola had an assist in each game; and Luostarinen logged an assist in Game 2.

4.) Special teams are making a statement early. The Panthers enter Monday with the fifth-best penalty kill (86.8 percent success rate) and ninth-best power play (25.7 percent success rate) in the league.

They are one of four teams in the top 10 in both units along with the Rangers (No. 1 penalty kill, No. 6 power play), Carolina Hurricanes (No. 7 penalty kill, No. 7 power play) and Nashville Predators (No. 2 penalty kill, No. 10 power play).

5.) The Panthers continue to be a strong third-period team. The Panthers were one of the best late-game teams last season, holding opponents to an NHL-low 63 goals in the third period.

That trend has continued so far this season. Despite already giving up 41 goals through 13 games (the 10th-most in the league), Florida has surrendered just eight goals in the final 20 minutes of regulation. That’s tied with the Washington Capitals and Winnipeg Jets for the second-fewest in the league, trailing only the Rangers.

The Panthers are 6-0-0 when leading games after two periods this season and 3-0-1 when games are tied after 40 minutes.