It was an all-time revenge game from Mikko Rantanen.
There was no greater subplot in the first round of the 2025 Stanley Cup Playoffs than Rantanen suiting up for the Dallas Stars to play the Colorado Avalanche squad he won the 2022 title with.
On Saturday night in Texas, Rantanen scored the first third-period, Game 7 hat trick in NHL history to help Dallas erase a 2-0 final-frame deficit and earn a stunning 4-2 victory over the Avs.
After opening the series with just one assist in four games, Rantanen registered 11 points in the final three games, including four in the third period of Game 7.
It was another incredible turn in a wild season for Rantanen, one that saw him dealt from the Avalanche team that drafted him to Carolina in January, only to wind up back in the Central Division with Dallas on trade deadline day.
Asked on the bench post-game by ESPN’s Emily Kaplan what he was feeling in the handshake line with former teammates like Nathan MacKinnon — whom Rantanen basically spent a decade playing beside — the big Finn spoke from the heart.
“Emotional,” said Rantanen, whose third goal went into an empty net with three seconds remaining in the game. “They’re my brothers, you know. I still love every one of them. Obviously we were enemies in the series on the ice, but they’re my dear friends off the ice. It was emotional and I love every one of them.”
Stars fans had to love seeing their squad stage a rally like this on home ice and punch their ticket to Round 2. Remember, Dallas beat Colorado — a true Cup contender in its own right — without the services of top defenceman Miro Heiskanen and leading scorer Jason Robertson for the entire series.
Now, the Stars can take a beat, catch their breath and prepare to face the Game 7 winner between the St. Louis Blues and Winnipeg Jets on Sunday night.
Before we get there, though, here are some takeaways from the decisive contest between Dallas and Colorado.
Don’t bet against Pete DeBoer in Game 7. Or Wyatt Johnston
If there’s such a thing as a clutch coach, Stars bench boss Pete DeBoer is surely it. With the comeback win versus the Avs, DeBoer is now a perfect 9-0 in Game 7s in his NHL career. The 56-year-old has one Game 7 victory with New Jersey, three with San Jose, two with Vegas and, now, three with Dallas.
Also, Wyatt Johnston — who turns 22 later this month — now already has two Game 7 game-winning goals to his credit. Two years ago, as a rookie, he scored the third-period game-winner in a 2-1 second-round victory over Seattle.
This time out, Johnston accepted a hard pass from Matt Duchene, took a fraction of a second to settle the puck at the side of the net and ripped home a power-play marker with 3:56 remaining in the third to give Dallas a 3-2 advantage.
While some people — specifically Avs fans — maybe quibble with the decision to whistle Jack Drury for the holding call that put Dallas up a man, the Avs centre had both mitts on Stars forward Tyler Seguin in front of the Colorado goal and pulled him to the ice.
The refs made the right call sending him to the box.
MacKinnon makes his mark
The puck drops on the blame game the second a team is eliminated, but don’t lay any of it at the skates of Avs star MacKinnon. No. 29 scored his playoffs-leading seventh goal of the series 31 seconds into the final frame to put Colorado up 2-0 in the contest.
At that point, it was easy to believe the Avs were going to emerge the winners because they kept pressing the issue, even after Dallas made it a one-goal game on Rantanen’s first goal of the night, a wicked wrist shot from the slot.
Really, it was two related bad breaks that hurt the Avs. First, while trying to restore a two-goal lead on a power play, Cale Makar’s stick exploded on a shot attempt, forcing him into a tripping penalty on Roope Hintz when the latter took the puck up ice. Then, on the ensuing Dallas PP, Rantanen whipped around the net, threw the puck in front and it kicked right off Samuel Girard’s skate and into the net to tie the game with 6:14 to go.
All that underscored the fact that Colorado’s experience has been the exact opposite of DeBoer’s in Game 7s. Avs coach Jared Bednar is now 0-4 in Game 7s with two of those defeats coming to DeBoer and the Stars. Overall, Colorado has now dropped seven straight Game 7s, failing to claim a winner-take-all contest since a second-round win over San Jose in 2002.
What now for Colorado?
The Avs have one series win since claiming the Cup in 2022. Of course, this series was notable simply for the fact captain Gabriel Landeskog played his first NHL hockey — and played well — since that ’22 Stanley Cup Final win over Tampa Bay.
Colorado will, presumably, have its captain back full-time next season, but there are still all kinds of questions now for a club that went all-in this year. The Rantanen swap was just part of the changes that saw the Avs basically swap out half their forward lineup from opening night of the season to Game 7 versus the Stars.
They also remade the crease on the fly, adding Mackenzie Blackwood and Scott Wedgewood in-season.
General manager Chris MacFarland was a busy man all year long and we’ll see what levers he can pull in the summer.
Stars ready to romp?
Now that they’ve found a way squeeze past Colorado, the Stars hope both Heiskanen and Robertson can return for Round 2. That’s great news for a squad already firing on all cylinders and bad news for whichever Central club — St. Louis or Winnipeg — emerges from out next Game 7 on Sunday night.
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