DENVER -- Mikko Rantanen has not looked like himself through the first two games of the Western Conference First Round. Zero points. Minus-3.
The superstar forward is transitioning to his new team, the Dallas Stars. He’s doing it while playing against his former team, the Colorado Avalanche, and now he’s coming back to his old home, Ball Arena, for the first time in the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
The best-of-7 series is tied 1-1 entering Game 3 on Wednesday (9:30 p.m. ET; Victory+, ESPN, ALT, TVAS2, SN360). Rantanen will try to avoid going three consecutive games without a point during a playoff run for the first time in his NHL career.
“He’s got a lot on his plate,” Stars coach Pete DeBoer said. “I don’t think anyone should be surprised that this hasn’t come easily and all at once. I think the track record of guys in similar situations to this tells everyone in this room, including our coaching staff, that this isn’t going to be easy.”
Rantanen spent a decade with one team, playing with elite talent in Colorado and winning the Stanley Cup in 2022.
He set a high bar. He had 101 points (34 goals, 67 assists) in 81 playoff games, averaging 1.25 points per game. Entering this season, he was tied with Mark Messier for sixth in NHL history among those who had played at least 74 games.
Only twice did he go two straight games without a point during a playoff run.
But he was eligible to become an unrestricted free agent July 1. The Avalanche traded him to the Carolina Hurricanes on Jan. 24, he played for Finland in the 4 Nations Face-Off from Feb. 12-20, and the Hurricanes flipped him to the Stars on March 7.
It was a tumultuous time.
After signing an eight-year, $96 million contract with the Stars on March 7, Rantanen had 18 points (five goals, 13 assists) in 20 games down the stretch, including an assist in a 4-3 overtime loss to the Avalanche in his first return to Ball Arena on March 16. He has found a place to live and gotten to know his new teammates, a few of whom are from Finland too.
He has been positive about Dallas and pleasant when asked repeated questions about Colorado, giving different versions of the same answer.
“It’s different now, you know, for sure,” he said Monday morning, for example. “Good friends off the ice, but I think now for next however [long] it takes, this series, we’re obviously enemies, so we compete hard.”
Considering all that, DeBoer praised his professionalism and said, “he’s actually probably ahead of schedule.”
The Stars have had only 41.9 percent of the 5-on-5 shot attempts with Rantanen on the ice in this series, though. That’s 17th among the 19 skaters the Stars have used, and they have had the last line change at home, giving them a chance to create more favorable matchups. The Avalanche will have the last line change now.
“He's obviously an unbelievable player with tons of skill,” Avalanche forward Logan O'Connor said. “We know his tendencies, which plays to our advantage a little bit, and at the same time, I mean, he knows all of ours.
“But he’s a hard guy to contain down low. I think that’s one of his biggest assets, is using his size and strength down low and taking pucks to the net, and obviously he’s got a great shot, so it’s on us to just continue to play hard and tight on him. Any skilled player like him, it’s hard when you take away their time and space really well and get physical with them.”
Chemistry is an issue. Rantanen often played on the right of center Roope Hintz and opposite left wing Jason Robertson in the regular season. But Robertson sustained a lower-body injury in the regular-season finale and hasn’t played in this series.
DeBoer put Rantanen with center Jamie Benn and forward Wyatt Johnston in Game 1 and to start Game 2, then tried an all-Finland line of Rantanen, Hintz and Mikael Granlund.
“They all know each other,” DeBoer said. “They get along well. They talk in Finnish, so whatever they’re saying, if it’s about me, I don’t understand, so it doesn’t bother me. But you know, I think we’ve been moving guys around. We’ve been moving Mikko around, trying to find a fit. Hopefully, we did tonight. I think those guys looked effective after we did that at the end of the first.”
The original trade hangs over everything right now. Two of the pieces Colorado received from Carolina in return for Rantanen -- center Jack Drury (one goal, one assist, plus-2) and forward Martin Necas (one assist, plus-1), who have had more time to adjust to their new team, to be fair -- have three points and are plus-3 in this series combined.
Rantanen was on the ice, right in front of Drury, when Drury scored from the slot to tie the game 2-2 at 4:42 of the second period Monday. Then Rantanen took a hooking penalty below the goal line in the offensive zone with 1:26 to go in the third period, and Necas had a Grade-A scoring chance with 12.4 seconds left. Can you imagine if Necas had scored the winning goal with Rantanen in the box?
But the Stars bailed out Rantanen by killing the penalty, and they won 4-3 in overtime.
“We need him, but he’s not going to win this series for us singlehandedly,” DeBoer said. “He’s got to play a part, but we’ve got a big group around him. Until he gets to a point where he’s making a nightly impact, other guys have to do some heavy lifting.”
NHL.com independent correspondent Ryan Boulding contributed
