Colorado Avalanche ‘giving up’ gave the Dallas Stars another Game 7 win | Opinion
One player prevented the Dallas Stars season ending on Saturday night.
Stars forward Mikko Rantanen did something few hockey players who aren’t goalies do by winning a playoff game by himself. His team trailed Game 7 against Colorado 2-0 with a little more than 13 minutes remaining, and in those few precious seconds that were left he scored a hat trick. In regulation.
“Memories for a lifetime,” Stars coach Pete DeBoer said. “I felt like something was going to happen. I couldn’t have predicted that. ... He took over the series, the last three or four games. He decided we were not going to go home. What you witnessed there was special.”
Special. Historic. Incredible. Inspiring. Amazing. Unbelievable. Playoff-altering.
Take your pick. They all fit, and yet are all equally inadequate.
The Stars came back to defeat the Avalanche 4-2 in Game 7, and advance to the Western Conference semifinals for the third consecutive year. The Stars will play the Winnpeg Jets in the next round. The best-of-seven series begins Wednesday in Winnipeg.
With top defenseman Miro Heiskanen and top forward Jason Robertson out for the entire series because of injury, the Stars still defeated one of the better teams in the league. DeBoer did not say when these players will return, but he expects both to play in the next round.
DeBoer won’t say it, but this was the Stars most impressive playoff series win since their days “in the bubble,” in 2020. The Stars should not have defeated the Avalanche without those two guys, but they did in large part because of defenseman Thomas Harley, and Rantanen.
Rantanen is not on this team without GM Jim Nill making the trade to bring him here before the trade deadline. Nill isn’t allowed to make the trade without team owner Tom Gaglardi signing off on the deal, and approving the eight-year contract that made it possible.
Rantanen is not on the Stars had Colorado not given up on this talented forward back in January when the team thought it could not keep him long term, and traded him to Carolina.
In this seven-game series, Rantanen scored 12 points with five goals. He had 11 points in the last three games. He is the second player in NHL history to have four points in the third period of a Game 7. These are Gretzky-Crosby-Ovechkin numbers.
The other times the Stars have seen individual playoff performances anywhere near what Rantanen did on Saturday night are from the likes of Mike Modano, Jamie Benn, Brenden Morrow and Joel Kiviranta.
Throughout Rantanen’s 10-year career with the Colorado Avalanche he was routinely one of the best playoff scorers in NHL history. The “criticism” of Rantanen was that his numbers were inflated because of the presence of the likes of center Nathan MacKinnon.
After the Stars acquired Rantanen from Carolina, he had 20 games to play with his new teammates in the regular season. These things normally take about 30 to 40 games to “figure it out,” but Rantanen is not normal.
“When I got traded (by Colorado to Carolina), it’s a business,” Rantanen said after the game. “I don’t know about ‘revenge’. I’m just happy to be on the winning side. The feeling is incredible, to win a series against a really good team.
“The series was not exactly what I expected. I expected a seven-game series even before Game 1. ... The belief was there the whole time.”
With Colorado leading 2-0 well into the third period, that belief may have been there. So was doubt.
The building was dead, and the Stars had only generated a few decent chances. They weren’t the better team, and a 2-0 third period deficit in Game 7 is normally death.
Rantanen’s first goal was a Red Bull shot into the entire crowd, and the feeling in the American Airlines Center immediately changed. The ice tilted.
A few minutes later, his individual effort on the game-tying goal during a power play is something only about 0.02 percent of all NHL players can make. He carried the puck into the offensive zone by himself all the way behind the goal for a wrap around attempt that deflected off the skate of a Colorado player into the net.
The goal itself was one of those plays that only make sense in hockey; it was a little lucky. Throw the puck on net, and goals can happen. The effort, skill, talent and determination to make a play at that point in the game was brilliance.
“You can’t write it up any better than that. It’s one of the best individual performances I’ve ever seen,” Stars goalie Jake Oettinger said. “He was not going to be denied tonight.”
Rantanen was not denied, and he carried his team past Colorado into the second round of the playoffs.
Special. Historic. Incredible. Inspiring. Amazing. Unbelievable. Playoff-altering.
Take your pick. They all fit.
This story was originally published May 3, 2025 at 11:47 PM.
