Hawks to open next season in Finland

SUNRISE, Fla. - Think the Blackhawks are far away from home when they play on the road in Vancouver?

Just wait.

The NHL announced Thursday that the Hawks will open the 2009-10 season with back-to-back games against the Florida Panthers on Oct. 2-3 in Helsinki, Finland.

While plans will be finalized later, it's believed the Hawks will hold part of their training camp in Europe and play several exhibition games there ahead of the series with the Panthers.

"I think it will be a different kind of training camp," coach Joel Quenneville said. "Everybody will be looking forward to starting on a different note and it will be a great opportunity for everybody to play in a different venue in a fun situation. We should all be looking forward to it."

The only other time the Hawks have played in Europe was in 1992, when they met the Montreal Canadiens in two exhibition games in London at Wembley Arena.

While the Hawks and Panthers are playing in Helsinki, the Red Wings and Blues will be opening their season with games on the same days in Stockholm, Sweden.

The NHL opened the 2008-09 season in Europe with games between the New York Rangers and Tampa Bay Lightning in Prague while the Pittsburgh Penguins and Ottawa Senators met in Stockholm.

Staying hot: Two more assists for Martin Havlat in Thursday's 4-0 win over the Panthers gave him 7 points in the last three games.

Jonathan Toews' empty-net goal late in the third period was his fourth in the last three games and gave him 7 points as well. Havlat and Toews each had 6 shots on goal.

"I liked how we played as a team," Joel Quenneville said. "It was solid in all aspects of our game. We had good zone presence and a lot of quality chances."

Tip-ins: According to TSN.ca, the Hawks are one of several teams that have talked to Colorado about winger Ryan Smyth, who has a no-trade clause. ... Aaron Johnson was the Hawks' healthy scratch. ...

Panthers backup goalie Craig Anderson, the Park Ridge native and ex-Hawk, is having an excellent season with a 10-4-5 record and .929 save percentage. Anderson will be an unrestricted free agent after the season. Anderson was 12-29-6 in his career with the Hawks while playing behind some bad teams. ...

Ben Eager's 2 goals gave him 10 for the season, 1 more than Dustin Byfuglien. ... The Hawks had 42 shots and 18 more blocked by the Panthers.