"He's got the most upside I've seen in a long time," said Panthers goalie prospect Evan Cowley, who was Borgstrom's teammate at Denver. "He's super crafty with the puck, exciting to watch. He's putting butts in seats in Denver. People really want to come watch him. They're almost as amazed as we are when we're seeing stuff in games. He can pull out some really cool stuff, especially in big times. It's going to be exciting for a lot of years to come."
Heponiemi, 18, had 86 points (28 goals, 58 assists) in 72 games for Swift Current of the Western Hockey League last season but likely needs to bulk up from 5-foot-10, 149 pounds before he's ready to play in the NHL.
Repo, 21, didn't put up the kind of offensive numbers as Borgstrom or Heponiemi but has a body more suited for the NHL (6-2, 198). Repo had 32 points (11 goals, 21 assists) in 46 games last season for Tappara, the team Barkov played for before he was drafted.
"He's like a god there," Repo said. "Barkov is a pretty popular in Finland. Everyone likes Florida."
The Panthers are hoping any or all of the four newest Finns can one day contribute the way Barkov has.
"First of all, the credit goes to the Finnish Ice Hockey Federation," said Jason Bukala, the Panthers director of amateur scouting. "They've had a nice run on a lot of different levels and they have a model over there that's clearly working. They deserve a lot of credit for that.
"Jari Kekalainen, there's a lot of great scouts in this game, but he does his homework and he's an outstanding scout and he's done a great job of identifying some real high-quality Finnish players, and he battles for them. And at the end of the day, he's right way more times than he's wrong. Until he makes some glaring mistake, I guess we'll keep rolling out those equations."