TAMPERE, Finland -- That was awesome.
It’s always exciting playing in kind of unknown territory, and this was a great experience.
Right from warmups the building was pretty packed and there was good energy. Our team came out right away and played the right way in the first period.
The second period was a lot of penalties and up and down, but the third period they pushed back, and that’s what you expect from a team that’s down.
I was super happy to see Aleksander Barkov play so well in front of his home crowd with a goal and three assists. I think all the Finns on the team had an amazing time.
There are just so many guys on this team that I don’t understand how they’re so good all the time, so consistent. Barkov and his line, Sergei Bobrovsky in the net, and our defensemen are just so consistent. Those are guys that you look up to and you want to emulate their play and how consistent they are.
It was Barkov's idea that we arrive at the arena wearing the sauna robes. That was funny. The team made us robes for our sauna day in Helsinki on Wednesday, and we decided to wear them. So, good thing we got the win because walking out of the rink with a loss would’ve been tough. But it was fun experience, and it was fun to contribute.
Mackie's goal started with a great defensive play. We kind of collapsed when it was needed, we didn’t give them much, and then the puck squirted out. Niko Mikkola got it to me on the wall, I took a couple of steps and saw their far defenseman take a step in. We call it surfing. He surfed up on me and Mackie bit into the inside, and then I just wanted to lay the puck into space.
