Mikko Rantanen’s 2024-25 season hasn’t been the one he expected to have. He has been uprooted by a shocking trade not once, but twice after spending the first decade of his career with the Avalanche.
Rantanen was dealt from Colorado to the Carolina Hurricanes on Jan. 24 and was again traded from Carolina to the Stars on March 7.
As if this campaign hasn’t already been strange enough for him, factor in the fact that, in his first playoff series as a Dallas Star, he is facing the team he spent a decade with that traded him just three months ago.
Rantanen has needed time to adjust to playing with the Stars, and while he hasn’t yet put up the superstar numbers in Dallas that he put up in Colorado, he is getting there.
It took him a bit to get settled in the playoffs as he was held to just one point (an assist on Tyler Seguin’s game-winning goal in Game 3) in the first four games of the series.
But Rantanen finally broke through with his first goal of the Stars-Avalanche series, tallying a goal and two assists in Dallas’ 6-2 Game 5 win.
“Sometimes that’s the one you need,” Stars forward Matt Duchene said in a radio interview with 96.7 FM/1310 The Ticket [KTCK-AM]. “That open net, backdoor and then everything changes.”
Rantanen’s biggest adjustment to playing with the Stars is how differently Dallas plays than Colorado does. While the Stars do their fair share of scoring, it’s not the same high-flying Avalanche system that saw Rantanen tally 105 and 104 points in his final two full seasons with Colorado.
“I think we’ve all been trying to find the line between playing hard-nosed, gritty, mistake-free hockey and also playing our game,” Duchene said. “And Mikko is a very creative, offensive-minded player. He’s coming from a team that free-wheels.
“Basically, him and [Nathan] MacKinnon had carte blanche to do whatever the heck they wanted out there and we play a little different way.”
What exactly is the difference in the Stars’ style of hockey? Duchene described it as “stingier.” Dallas prefers to keep things simpler and grind opponents down, putting the puck in areas where opponents can’t attack.
“That’s something that I think he’s been adjusting to,” he said. “It’s harder to produce that way, but I think in the game last night, I thought we just had a really good balance.”
Don’t believe Duchene? Ask Stars coach Pete DeBoer, who also joined The Ticket on Tuesday. After hearing what Duchene said of Rantanen, DeBoer weighed in.
“I think that’s spot-on,” DeBoer said. “I think he’s been programmed for 10 years a certain way, and he is adjusting. But I think he’s adjusting really well.”
Playing in an open, freestyling system alongside MacKinnon for a decade creates habits and there is almost always going to be an adjustment period when changing teams. Rantanen had 64 points through 49 games with Colorado this season prior to being traded.
But in his 13 games with Carolina before being traded again, he registered just six points in a Hurricanes uniform. Rantanen’s production ticked back up a bit in Dallas with 18 points in 20 games.
“I think the Carolina experience probably was his initial moment of shock to ‘I’m not in Colorado anymore with Nate MacKinnon in the middle of the ice,’” DeBoer said.
It isn’t always easy to get a star player like Rantanen to buy in to a new team and playing style in the middle of a season. He bought into Dallas by signing his massive contract extension with the Stars at the trade deadline, but DeBoer thinks things are improving due to his level of buy-in on the ice.
“That adjustment period, I think is getting shorter and we’re seeing big improvements,” he said. “The one thing about him is he’s all in. There’s no complaining about it.
“He understands that he’s a smart hockey guy and he’s all in. I think last night was a perfect example of we can play that game and still create offense.”
Dallas certainly created its fair share of offense in Game 5 as it took control of the series and put the Avalanche on the brink of elimination.
If the Stars are able to finish off the Avalanche and move on to the second round, Rantanen would have another series to get comfortable with his new team and could lead to more performances like he had in Game 5
As the Stars await the returns of Miro Heiskanen and Jason Robertson, they may also be getting a leveled-up version of Rantanen as the playoffs continue.
