Mikko Rantanen had a hat trick and added an assist to help the Dallas Stars rally for a 4-2 win against his former team, the visiting Colorado Avalanche, in Game 7 of their first-round series on Saturday.
Dallas advanced to the second round of the Stanley Cup playoffs and will face the winner of the Winnipeg Jets-St. Louis Blues series. Game 7 of that matchup is set for Sunday in Winnipeg.
Matt Duchene had two assists and Jake Oettinger made 25 saves for the Stars. Dallas coach Pete DeBoer improved to 9-0 for his career in Game 7s.
Josh Manson and Nathan MacKinnon scored for the Avalanche. Mackenzie Blackwood made 15 saves.
Down by two in the third period, Rantanen cut the deficit in half at 7:49. He cut to the middle just inside the blue line, holding the puck before wiring a wrister from the slot past Blackwood’s blocker.
Rantanen tied it at 2 on the power play at 13:46. He collected the puck in the neutral zone and carried it up the middle. He powered around Colorado defenseman Ryan Lindgren inside the zone and then looped around the net for a wraparound that went off the skate of defenseman Samuel Girard and into the net.
Rantanen said it was emotional playing against the Avalanche, the team that employed him for 10 years, although he spent this season playing for Colorado, Carolina and Dallas after a series of trades.
“They’re my brothers, for sure. Most of them I know really well and played with them for 10 years,” Rantanen said. “There’s a couple of guys who have been there since Day 1, Nate (Nathan MacKinnon) and Landy (Gabriel Landeskog), so it’s emotional. Obviously, we were enemies this series on the ice but I always love them off the ice.”
Less than three minutes later, Wyatt Johnston took a cross-crease pass from Duchene and snapped it past Blackwood’s blocker side on the power play to give Dallas a 3-2 lead.
Johnston heaped praise on Rantanen for starting the comeback.
“Yeah, it was huge,” Johnston said. “We always feel like we’re in it, no matter what the score is, but one-goal deficit seems a lot better than a two-goal deficit, especially in the third. … That definitely gets a lot of belief into the group when he gets that one to get us one back.”
Rantanen completed the hat trick with an empty-net goal at 19:57 for the 4-2 final.
Dallas coach Pete DeBoer said Rantanen “took over the series the last three, four games. He just decided that we were not going to go home and we were not going to lose. What you witnessed there was special.”
Colorado coach Jared Bednar lamented the opportunity that got away.
“It’s tough because you put your heart and soul into the whole year and the series, all of it, and you’re in a good position, and then it slips away on you,” Bednar said. “So it’s tough because I know how hard these guys worked and how bad they wanted it, and that’s all you can kind of really think of at this point.”
MacKinnon put Colorado ahead 2-0 on a delayed penalty just 31 seconds into the third. MacKinnon, who jumped on as the extra attacker, took a feed from Lindgren at the right point and carried it down the right side before cutting the net and snapping a shot under Oettinger’s right arm.
MacKinnon said the Stars’ comeback was “pretty shocking.”
“Felt like we were in total control, and then Mikko, credit to him, he made some amazing plays,” MacKinnon said. “He was a difference maker and he took over. I don’t know. I’m in shock to be honest with you. Felt like we were in complete control of the game the whole time and just lost it.”
Manson scored short-handed to give Colorado a 1-0 lead at 9:50 of the second period. Logan O’Connor created a turnover in the defensive zone and won a race to the puck at the other end, spinning around at the half wall for a centering pass to Manson, who fired a wrist shot from the slot over Oettinger’s left pad. The puck hit the post and bounced off Oettinger and into the net.
–Field Level Media
