Mikko Rantanen is a good player. A very good player! And now he’s a Dallas Star! At this point, the topline numbers have been well-publicized. Since the 2020-21 season he’s scored the fourth most points in the league, only behind Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl, and Nathan MacKinnon. Over the same time period, he’s scored the fifth most goals, behind just Auston Matthews, Draisaitl, David Pastrnak, and McDavid. Not only that, but he’s maintained that production in the playoffs, actually accumulating points at a higher rate in the playoffs than the regular season over that span. He is, again, an extremely good player. As sad as it was to see Logan Stankoven sent the other way, there’s no question the Dallas Stars are a better team now than they were on March 6.
But part of the trade was a brand new 8 year, $96 million contract for Rantanen with an average annual value (AAV) of $12m per season. That’s a huge commitment, and it’s worth looking at how that affects the Stars beyond this year.
Future Roster Impact
$12m per year is a lot of money. At the moment, that ranks fourth among players under contract for next season, though I would expect both Leon Draisaitl and Mitch Marner sign for more than that by the time the next season starts. That’s also much, much more than Logan Stankoven’s $814k cap hit would have been for next season, while not increasing the number of players under contract for next season. Jim Nill has been extremely careful planning the timing his contracts so that contracts expire as raises are due. However, Rantanen’s extension was not potentially part of the plan until a couple weeks ago, how does that affect the long-term vision for the Stars?
Greg Amundsen wrote about the Stars outlook and felt the trade for Rantanen shifted the Stars’ core from a group of 21-25 year old skaters, centered around the 2017 draft class and filled out by the 2020 and 2021, drafts to a group of 25-28 year old skaters, still centered around the 2017 draft, but with the core filled out by Hintz and Rantanen. That moves the Stars’ contention window up, though there are still plenty of young, talented players on the roster with Wyatt Johnston, Thomas Harley, Mavrik Bourque, and Lian Bichsel.
Having an older core locked in puts more pressure on the team to win sooner, and Rantanen’s extension creates additional pressure on this year’s group. As it stands now, the Stars are going to need to be creative to make things work this summer with contracts expiring for a large part of their forward group including Jamie Benn, Matt Duchene, Evgenii Dadonov, and Mikael Granlund.
Assuming the Stars plan to carry one extra forward and one extra defenseman next season, that leaves six players to sign with about $5.3m in cap space, or about $888k per roster spot; a lower cap hit than every player on the roster except Oskar Bäck. Given Nill’s public comments to this point, one of those roster spots is likely to go to Benn. Since he’ll be over 35, he’ll be eligible for a bonus-heavy contract that defers most of the cap hit to 2026-27. The rest, however, are up in the air, and don’t seem likely to include any of the pending UFAs on the roster.
Jim Nill will find a way to navigate this crunch, either through college free agency, undrafted players, or depth players in Cedar Park, some of whom have played games in Dallas this season, though none are projected to be difference makers. The most obvious candidate for a move to create cap space is Matt Dumba, who has struggled this year and carries a $3.75m cap hit. If the Stars can find a taker for him and his contract, that opens up quite a bit more space to fill out the rest of the depth chart next season. However, there’s no question that Dallas’ vaunted forward depth is going to take a hit next season.
Looking further to the future, the 2026-27 season is projected to see the cap rise again by nearly an additional $10m, creating lots of space. Both Jason Robertson and especially Thomas Harley will be due raises that offseason though, while Tyler Seguin’s cap hit will remain on the books for one more season and any bonuses from a potential Benn extension would be added to that year’s cap as well. Given how many variables are at play, it’s hard to say how difficult the Stars’ cap situation will be in two years. What is clear is that the Stars’ depth will take a hit over the next couple of seasons compared to its current until the cap rises enough to fill out the bottom of the lineup again.
Is Rantanen Worth His Contract?
Depth is valuable, but it doesn’t make up for elite talent. Is Rantanen good enough to make up for the erosion of roster depth necessary to accommodate his contract? This is a trickier question. Looking purely at points or goals, this seems like a no-brainer. He’s top 5 in scoring, he deserves a top 5 contract. However, several factors cast this assertion into doubt.
First, although Rantanen’s clearly among the top forwards in the game, it’s fair to question whether he’s part of the truly elite tier. Last summer, The Athletic placed Rantanen in tier 2B of annual player tiers article, with five other forwards and below twelve forwards in tiers 1A through 2A, noting that although Rantanen had put up mountains of points over the past two seasons, but that came as a result of playing more minutes than any other forward in the league. On a per minute basis, he ranked closer to 30th in scoring at even strength and on the power play. That’s still extremely good, but maybe not truly elite. Second, he took the vast majority of his shifts with Nathan MacKinnon and Cale Makar and Colorado had better on-ice number with him on the bench than on the ice. It still takes a lot of talent to be put in that position and to succeed to the degree Rantanen has. If anyone could slot in next to MacKinnon and Makar and put up 100 points in back-to-back seasons, surely Artturi Lehkonen or Valeri Nichushkin would have done so. Rantanen’s obviously not a run-of-the-mill top line forward.
Still, it’s difficult to shake the feeling that Rantanen is an elite complementary piece who’s benefitted from being in the perfect situation to maximize his talent. Analyzing Rantanen’s fit with Dallas, Jack Han subtly mentioned that he did not consider Rantanen a top 10 wing mentioning that despite his size, he’s not an effective forechecker and is relatively easy to knock off the puck for his size. Similarly, Vinh Cao expressed some concern that Rantanen is at his best when he’s on a line with a play-driver rather than being a play-driver himself. Both agreed that Rantanen should be a much better fit in Dallas’ system and expect him to do well
On the flip side, Sean Shapiro asked several pro scouts about Rantanen’s fit with Dallas and the takeaway leaned much more towards Rantanen being among the upper. In particular, his playoff performance stood out to scouts as something indicative of his elite ability. Something that set him apart from other players that would make Dallas a much more dangerous team in the post-season.
So, qualitatively, the consensus seems to be that Rantanen is somewhere on the cusp on elite, either above or below that cutoff depending on who is asked. What do the numbers say?
Dom Luszczyszyn’s contract model shows $12m AAV as an overpay at the moment, though he suggests that his model is overreacting to a down year for Rantanen.
Mikko Rantanen extends for $12M x 8 years I think my model is underrating him a bit right now based on his drop-off this season. Split the difference between where he was last season and $12M feels like a good price.
— dom 📈 (@domluszczyszyn.bsky.social) March 7, 2025 at 10:33 AM
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Rantanen’s projected annual value actually increases over the next three seasons, but that’s due to the cap being projected to rise by about $10 million per year, not Rantanen’s own play improving in his age 29-31 seasons. Even if the deal is a fair one over the length of the deal and Rantanen’s actual value exceeds his projected value by $1m per year, the deal will not provide surplus value until the 2026-27 season.
There are plenty of reasons to think this season is an aberration for Rantanen. It’s not unheard of for players to struggle in contract years with the distraction of negotiations hanging over them. Not only that, but his 13 games in Carolina were quite bad, bringing down his overall numbers for this season. However, Rantanen’s per minute production has been declining for the past few seasons according to both HockeyViz and Evolving-Hockey. First let’s look at Rantanen’s sG rating, an attempt at measuring underlying playing ability.
Even discarding this year’s dip as being due to a bad system fit in Carolina, over the past three years, Rantanen has fallen below the elite tier to “merely” being a first line quality player, with a similar per minute impact level to Roope Hintz.
Evolving-Hockey’s xGAR metric, which weights expected goals more heavily that actual goals, is more concerning with the per minute drop-off beginning even earlier, in the 2021-22 season, and continuing steadily over each of the past three seasons.
Finally, Evolving-Hockey’s regular GAR metric, which puts more value in actual goals, also shows a per minute drop-off over the past three years, but not a steady year-to-year trend. However, he’s still clearly played a level below his peak from the 2020-21 to 2021-22 seasons.
Rantanen’s apparent decline, could have explanations apart from the player getting worse. First, the way player value algorithms work is they have to assign on-ice results to someone. When two players play together a lot, their time apart is how the algorithm assign credit for their time together. A few minutes of poor play away from MacKinnon could cause the algorithm to overweight MacKinnon’s impact and underrate Rantanen’s. Given Colorado’s poor depth the past few seasons, it seems reasonable Rantanen might struggle a bit away from MacKinnon and Makar.
His dip in per minute production also coincides with the season he started playing a ridiculous number of minutes. It’s very possible that in adjusting to the increased workload, he had to play a more energy-conserving style which had a negative effect on his overall impact. A lighter workload could do wonders for his per minute impact, and Dallas has more depth to lighten that load than anyone.
Similarly, it’s hard not to believe that Rantanen may have been conserving himself for the playoffs. While the Avalanche haven’t exactly load-managed Rantanen in recent years, his workload has still increased once the post-season started. With little left to prove in the regular season, Rantanen could hardly be blamed for phoning it in some nights while keeping his focus on the games that really matter.
This feels like playing devil’s advocate though. Even throwing out the current season with its various distractions, the numbers over the past few years suggest that Rantanen is a top line player, but not a top 10 or 15 player. Split the difference between the numbers the opinions of various scouts and it’s still hard to see him as a $12m player.
Conclusion
This piece may come off as overly pessimistic, but it’s not meant to be. A month ago, the Stars were good enough to win a Cup without making any additional moves. Adding Mikko Rantanen only makes them a better team this year. Mikko Rantanen is a tremendous player and the Stars are rightly considered a top tier contender this season after trading for him. However, his contract is huge and between a cap crunch the next couple of seasons and Rantanen’s likely decline after that as he enters his 30s, this puts the pressure on Dallas to win this season. The good news is there isn’t a better time for the Stars to go all in.