Four points were for Roope Hintz and Miro Heiskanen – Florida roared away against Boston

Roope Hintz scored a hat trick as the Dallas Stars crushed the Minnesota Wild. Miro Heiskanen played up to four goals. In Boston, Florida roared while Carolina took victory number two against the NY Islanders.

In the North American ice hockey league NHL, the Finnish professionals got to celebrate.

Dallas freshman center Roope Hintz scored three goals and played in one as Dallas won 7–3 to even the series at 1–1.

One player who gave Roope Hintz a tough fight in the battle for man of the match was Miro Heiskanen.

The Dallas back played up to four goals and seemed to control and set up the best he wanted.

Hintz opened the scoring in the match already after just over four minutes when, in a numerical disadvantage, he scored on a play by Joel Kiviranta.

Kiviranta stole the puck from Kirill Kaprizov and passed the puck to Hintz who was alone through and outsmarted Minnesota goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury.

After Tyler Seguin extended the lead to 2–0, Minnesota never really got close despite cutting it to 2–1 late in the first period.

Dallas’ third and fourth goals came early in the second period.

In a 4–1 lead, the Texas team got a little too warm in their clothes.

Midway through the second period, Minnesota scored twice in a span of eleven seconds to cut the game to 4–3.

This time too, Dallas caught the problem before Minnesota could cause even bigger problems and scored two quick goals.

First, Yevgeni Dadonov extended the lead to 5–3 on a pass from Miro Heiskanen and 48 seconds later, Hintz scored his second goal of the game.

Midway through the third period, Hintz completed his hat trick as center forward Jason Robertson and Roope Hintz scored Dallas’ seventh goal, this time in numerical advantage.

What was special about Hintz’s hat-trick was that the Finn scored both in a numerical disadvantage, in five-on-five and in a numerical advantage.

The last time someone managed the same feat was in 2015 when Tyler Johnson scored a similar hat trick for the Tampa Bay Lightning.

Before the dust of the night, the Texas team had the flow against them.

First, they lost the first game in overtime after being clearly the better team, and then came the news that star forward Joe Pavelski will miss game two due to injury.

After a clear victory last night, at least the biggest worries can be pushed aside.

Although Dallas did well without Pavelski, it is very important that the absence is not prolonged

Pavelski’s participation or non-participation may very well be what determines how the series plays out from here on out.

The Florida Panthers roared

In Patrice Bergeron’s absence, the Florida Panthers took advantage of their opportunity to even the series at 1–1 after a 6–3 victory away in Boston.

One who clearly raised the level from the first game was the team’s captain Aleksander Barkov.

Barkov had a hard time getting into the match in the first meeting.

Last night it looked much easier and Barkov could help lead the team from the front.

In addition to a game-like improvement, Barkov recorded himself in the scoring record.

During the scant 20 minutes Barkov was on the ice, the center played up to Brandon Montours 3-2 goals.

The biggest bang of the night still didn’t surprise the players themselves.

– We always believed in ourselves and never gave up hope, commented Matthew Tkachuk after the match NHL.com.

Tkachuk played until two goals in the game and faithfully toiled hard to give Florida a chance to win.

– We knew we were facing a difficult challenge but we are not the type to just give up and let the opponents win. We are confident no matter who we meet.

The win means Florida stole home field advantage.

– We knew that sooner or later we had to win away from home if we wanted to win the series. The fact that we succeeded in this already was very important for the team.

Florida hosts Boston on Saturday night.