Last night, the Dallas Stars accomplished something that has never, ever been seen before in the NHL.
They won Game 1.
Alright, hyperbole much, but that honestly is, first and foremost, my biggest takeaway from the game. Yes, yes yes, Mikko Rantanen is a god among men who seems to be actively trying to make Colorado Avalanche fans as miserably as possible (we’ll get to that later, I promise). But more than anything, I’m ecstatic that, for the first time since the 2020 Stanley Cup Final, the Stars have actually won the first game of a playoff series, snapping an eight-game skid.
Now, winning Game 1 isn’t everything — lest you somehow forget, the Stars ended up losing that series, and that still playing nine rounds (and counting?) since then despite those losses means the Stars are pretty good at bucking the trend for teams wearing similar skates. But consider that:
1) The Stars are the lower seed, which means they have now (temporarily?) stolen home ice advantage.
2) The win came against the Winnipeg Jets, who Dallas went 1-3 against in the regular season and were outscored 5-14 in those games.
The first point is a nice consolation prize, but not a game changer (ask how that fared for the Avalanche). But the second one, in my opinion, is huge — the Stars have simply not played well against Winnipeg all year long, which is one of the biggest reasons why I was personally rooting for the Blues to emerge from the first round. That’s not to say I thought Dallas would lose the series (my prediction was, and still is, Dallas in 6), but that it would be particularly difficult, perhaps just as much as the series against Colorado.
I also, understandably, thought the Stars were going to get cratered last night. Shows what I know.
So it’s not just that the Stars finally slayed their Game 1 demons, but that they managed to do it against this team. And despite the superstar headliner (again, more on him later), I felt this was ultimately a team effort, which are the most satisfying wins looking at a long-term perspective. Specifically, there are four contributors that I feel warrant highlighting.
The first is the Penalty Kill, which built off of a strong, suffocating series against Colorado by similarly stifling the Jets four times. The same Jets, mind you, who won the President’s Trophy in large part thanks to their No. 1 power play (28.9%). Personally, I didn’t think there were any bad calls in this one, with the Stars more or less deserving each of their penalties (in fact, they probably deserved a couple more). That meant the Penalty Kill had to bail them out, and they were stellar as they rose to the challenge.
The second is more or less a continuation of the first, and that’s the Stars’ defense. Esa Lindell led all skaters in ice-time with 27:52, doing what he always does: play really solid defense that doesn’t stick out much. Meanwhile Thomas Harley, who logged 25:07 (one second behind the Jets’ leading skater, Neal Pionk) played in all situations and had a couple of solid scoring chances.
And fourth out of all skaters on both sides of the ice? Cody Ceci(!), who logged 24:33(!!!) despite being in the penalty box for one of the aforementioned penalty kills. I never was a Ceci fan, and honestly I’m still not, but I felt that he, along with the rest of the blueline, put in a solid performance. Miro Heiskanen can’t get back soon enough, but that’s more so because he’s just that good and less so because of struggles without him.
The third main contributor was Jake Oettinger, who I think put in another excellent playoff performance. First goal against aside (a rare “what a pretty goal, but you also should have stopped that), he was a stonewall in net tonight (you can’t leave Mark Scheifele open like that for Goal No. 2), especially in the dying minutes of the game as Winnipeg pulled Connor Hellebuyck for the extra attacker. Considering how the Jets eliminated the Blues last round (and the Stars’ long track record of losing Game 1), you couldn’t help but feel antsy about the Jets forcing overtime. But Oettinger stood tall as he had all night long, securing the win for Dallas.
And finally, yes, there was Mikko Rantanen, who’s doing things this postseason that literally no one has ever done before as he secured a second consecutive hat trick, this one a natural because apparently there’s always room for improvement. I think it was a less “dominating” performance than Game 7, in which Rantanen put the team on his back to flip the elimination script on his old team, but you couldn’t help but watch in awe as Rantanen did it again… and again… and again.
Special shoutout, by the way, to the Stars fan the broadcast cut to after Rantanen Goal No. 2, who was wearing a Logan Stankoven jersey. He was burying his head into his hands while laughing and his father(?) was patting him on the back, a large grin on his face. How crazy does that have to be to watch your team trade away one of your favorite players, but then to watch as the guy they got in return keeps doing stuff like that night in and night out?
Ahh yes, the trade. The perfect foil to the other blockbuster by an American Airlines Center tenant this spring. I’ll be honest, when the end-of-season skid happened and Dallas dropped Game 1 (again) to Colorado, I was feeling a lot less positive about the trade than when it went down. Sure, the odds were against you landing Rantanen in Free Agency. But to give up that much at the expense of possibly upgrading your blueline, when you were missing Heiskanen? To possibly (if not likely) getting eliminated in Round 1 after paying a premium to get Rantanen now for this playoff run (plus the guaranteed extension)? That was going to sting.
But Game 7 made that expensive tax all worth it, no matter what was going to happen the rest of the postseason. Which meant Rantanen following that historical performance with another all-timer was just the whipped cream, cherry, and hot fudge on top. The Stars have played a lot of playoff hockey in the past 5-6 years, but I’m not sure they’ve ever had a clear cut Conn Smythe favorite were they to go the distance.
Until now.