Stars defeat Avalanche in Game 7 thriller, advance to Round 2: Takeaways

New York Times

04-05-2025

DALLAS — And to think, there was about a week there where the entire hockey world was wondering if Mikko Rantanen was going to show up in this series.
Rantanen scored three third-period goals — two herculean solo efforts and en empty-netter — to erase a two-goal deficit, and also assisted on Wyatt Johnston's game-winning power-play goal with 3:56 left to give the Dallas Stars a remarkable 4-2 victory in Game 7 of this titanic first-round series against the Colorado Avalanche. Dallas now moves on to face the winner of Jets-Blues on Sunday night, while Colorado heads home in shock, having lost to its biggest rival for the second straight year.
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Rantanen, subject of the two most shocking trades of the year — first from Colorado to Carolina, then from Carolina to Dallas — buried his old team. After posting just one assist in the first four games of the series, Rantanen closed with three goals and seven assists in the final three, reminding his old teammates just what they're missing without him. His third period was one for the ages.
The life had been sucked out of American Airlines Center after Nathan MacKinnon scored his seventh goal of the series on a delayed penalty in the opening minute of the third period. But at 7:49 of the third, Rantanen cut across the middle of the ice and beat Mackenzie Blackwood — who had made several brilliant stops to that point — with a sensational snipe, banking in a shot off the top corner of the goal. Six minutes later, Rantanen blew through three Colorado penalty-killers and scored on a wraparound, banking his shot in off Samuel Girard's skate. It was a fitting goal for Dallas, which had seen the Avalanche score at least three fluky goals in the series, including the Game 6 game-winner, an own-goal by Sam Steel off Colin Blackwell's shoulder.
It'll be a long offseason for the Avalanche, a trendy pick to win the Stanley Cup despite finishing third in the Central Division and dealing away their clutch future Hall of Famer, Rantanen. A dramatic midseason overhaul of their roster had given them the depth at center (Brock Nelson, Charlie Coyle, Jack Drury) and the goaltending (Mackenzie Blackwood, Scott Wedgewood) they needed to right the ship. They were excruciatingly close to closing this one out after keeping their season alive with a Game 6 victory at home, but instead they're left to wonder what might have been.
The Stars, meanwhile, are set up for a deep run. They managed to beat the mighty Avalanche without their top defenseman, Miro Heiskanen, and one of their top scorers, Jason Robertson. Both have been skating with the team and could return in the second round against Winnipeg or St. Louis.
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Both teams have been mostly under control this series, with very few extracurriculars like in, say, the Tampa-Florida series. But Jamie Benn made a potentially disastrous mistake when he cross-checked Valeri Nichushkin in the face midway through the first period. He got a well-earned double-minor for it (would have been hard to argue with a major), putting the Stars in a dicey spot early in the game.
But the Stars penalty kill held firm. It wasn't easy, as Johnston had to save a goal by breaking up a Martin Necas cross-goalmouth pass to a wide-open Gabriel Landeskog, but Colorado came up empty. Just as it did in Game 3, with Mason Marchment's double-minor for high-sticking Brock Nelson in the final minute of regulation.
Colorado's power play was eighth in the league in the regular season, scoring at a 24.8-percent clip. But it entered Game 7 14th among the 16 playoff teams with a meager 15.8-percent conversion rate.
The Avs couldn't get it done on the power play, but they sure could on the penalty kill. After Sam Malinski interfered with Roope Hintz and landed himself in the penalty box, it was Colorado that seized the moment, with Josh Manson, of all people, scoring the first goal of the game shorthanded.
But it was Logan O'Connor — who else? — who made it happen. O'Connor has been an absolute menace all series, particularly on the penalty kill. And when Hintz left the puck at the point after Mikko Rantanen already had started heading down the wall, O'Connor pounced on the mistake, grabbing the puck and racing up the left side of the ice. He stopped short in the offensive zone and then flung a centering pass to a hard-charging Manson. Manson's shot hit the post, then hit Jake Oettinger in the back and went in — another strange bounce in a series full of them for the Stars goaltender.
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It was Manson's second goal in as many games (he had one of Colorado's two empty-netters in Game 6). The defensive-minded defenseman had just one goal all regular season. For O'Connor, it was his sixth point of the series, second only to Nathan MacKinnon for the Avalanche. He had a shorthanded goal of his own in Game 4, and also scored in Game 2.
Aside from a dizzying second period in Game 6, when Rantanen and Hintz combined for eight points, some of Dallas' biggest names didn't really come through in this series. Rantanen finished with a team-high 12 points (five goals, seven assists) against his old team, and Hintz had four goals and three assists. Johnston had two goals and four assists in a solid effort.
But Duchene, the Stars' leading scorer in the regular season with 82 points in 82 games, had no goals and two assists — though the second one was a doozy, teeing up Johnston's go-ahead goal with a cross-crease feed. Mikael Granlund, another splashy trade acquisition, had one goal and one assist. Marchment, a 22-goal scorer, had one goal and two assists, and Tyler Seguin, after working his way back from hip surgery, had two goals and one assist.
Colorado had plenty of underwhelming producers, too. Cale Makar, the 30-goal Norris favorite, had just one goal, an empty netter. Brock Nelson, the Avs' biggest deadline acquisition, didn't score in the series. And Martin Necas had four assists, but just one goal. Even MacKinnon tying a franchise record with seven goals in one series wasn't enough to overcome that.
Miro Heiskanen's potential return was a discussion point every day of this series, brought up at every Pete DeBoer press conference, day after day after day. He skated throughout the series, rejoined the team for practices and morning skates early on, even rotated in on the power play in the latter stages. But he never did return, and internally, the Stars weren't exactly holding their breath, or coming to the rink every day wondering if this was the day Heiskanen came back to save them.
'No, we don't want to pressure him too much,' said rookie Lian Bichsel. 'He has to go through his rehab, he has to be 100 percent to get back. We just have to be patient with him.'
Bichsel said Heiskanen has been 'really positive' despite the obvious frustrations that come with sitting out playoff games. DeBoer, meanwhile, said the call was never his in the first place. After all, Sunday marks three months since Heiskanen's surgery, and the initial prognosis was three to four months.
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'I mean, there's really no decision,' he said before Game 7. 'It's not a player's decision. There's medical people involved, people have to sign off on things. He had a serious knee surgery. If he does play in the near future here, he's going to be pushing the deadlines that were given to him when the surgery was initially given. We're not going to put him at risk for further damage and doctors aren't going to sign off on that, either. So there's really no discussion on this. He's close. I know from where you guys are sitting, 'Oh, I see him out there, he's practicing, he's doing this.' But that's different from jumping into a full-contact Game 7 hockey game.'
Heiskanen and Jason Robertson — Dallas' top defenseman and one of its top forwards — both got close, but not quite close enough.
'We just have to win games so they can come back,' Bichsel said. 'We're working our asses off for (Heiskanen), for Robo, for all the guys who are out, so that they get a chance to play.'
The hockey world feared the worst when Bichsel lay motionless on the ice early in the second period after crashing into the boards while battling Jack Drury for the puck.
Bichsel's return for the third period was just as shocking.
Talking with The Athletic after Saturday's morning skate, Bichsel said he was 'fine' and downplayed the injury — or lack thereof.
'Fell down, got hit, stood up again and played the third period,' he said. 'Wasn't that bad.'
Of course, in between 'got hit' and 'stood up again' were a few minutes when Bichsel didn't move.
'Just needed to take a breath,' he said.
So he just had the wind knocked out of him, then?
'I couldn't really tell,' he said. 'I was just confused at the start. Once (Stars head athletic trainer Dave Zeis) came over, we just went through some routine movements for my neck and stuff. Everything was good. So I got up.'
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'Confused' is an eyebrow-raising word in an era of brain-injury awareness, of course. Bichsel moved slowly and needed help to get off the ice, but he said he was 'feeling good' once he was back in the locker room, presumably in the quiet room (he declined to go into specifics).
'Just had to take a breath,' he said. 'We did some testing and I was good to go.'