DALLAS \u2014 What Mikko Rantanen did in a four-game span last spring is the stuff of legend, the stuff of video games.<\/p>\n
It started with a relatively ho-hum 3-point game in Game 5 against the Colorado Avalanche in the first round. Then came a 4-point second period in Game 6. He followed that with three goals and an assist in the third period of a decisive Game 7 victory. Then he went out and had another three-goal period in Game 1 against Winnipeg.<\/p>\n
Eight goals and six assists in four games. Back-to-back single-period hat tricks. It was outrageous. And it all but single-handedly won that epic first-round showdown with the Avalanche, who were unequivocally the better team for most of that series.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s what a guy like Rantanen can do. He\u2019s the ultimate safety net for a team like the Dallas Stars. Knowing he\u2019s there, knowing what he\u2019s capable of, no deficit feels insurmountable, no game seems unwinnable, no drought seems unbreakable.<\/p>\n
And the scary thing for Dallas\u2019 opponents? He\u2019s not even the only guy in green who can do that. Not with a pair of 45-goal scorers, Jason Robertson and Wyatt Johnston, lurking. It\u2019s a comforting thought for the rest of the Stars\u2019 lineup.<\/p>\n
But it can lead to complacency, too.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have guys in this room who can do what Mikko did \u2014 guys that can score at will,\u201d Stars winger Sam Steel said. \u201cBut I don\u2019t think that\u2019s a good plan, to just rely on that. We\u2019ve all got to chip in and play the right way. That\u2019s a better recipe for success than just relying on a few guys who can do that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Therein lies the nagging issue with the Stars. Though there are many fingers to point after a dreadful 6-1 loss to the Minnesota Wild in Game 1 of their first-round series \u2014 a lack of battle, poor defensive positioning, an off night from goaltender Jake Oettinger, a struggling penalty kill, the gaping hole left down the middle by Roope Hintz\u2019s injury, not to mention Minnesota\u2019s own excellence \u2014 the fact is, the Stars didn\u2019t produce enough offense.<\/p>\n
And that\u2019s not new.<\/p>\n
For all of Dallas\u2019 firepower and all its success in the postseason the past three years, the Stars just don\u2019t score enough goals in the playoffs. The offense has particularly dried up in their three Western Conference final losses. In 2023 against the Vegas Golden Knights, Dallas was shut out twice, including in the decisive Game 6. In 2024 against the Edmonton Oilers, the Stars scored just four goals over games 4, 5 and 6. And last spring against those same Oilers, they scored five goals over their last four games, including a grand total of two over games 2, 3 and 4. The two Robertson goals that came in Game 5 were mostly empty calories, the game no longer really in doubt.<\/p>\n
Over the past four regular seasons, the Stars have averaged 3.42 goals per game, fourth in the league, trailing only the high-octane trio of the Oilers, the Avalanche and the Tampa Bay Lightning. But in the postseason, they\u2019ve averaged just 2.75 goals per game, 15th in the league in that span.<\/p>\n
The Stars are largely at a loss to explain it.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery year is different,\u201d Robertson said. \u201cMy first time going to the conference final, we scored enough goals to win, but we didn\u2019t. The second year, the power play was one of the reasons. Last year, we had our opportunities, but we just didn\u2019t score on them, and (Oilers goalie Stuart) Skinner played pretty well. I don\u2019t think it\u2019s just one thing that explains it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Conventional hockey wisdom states it\u2019s much more difficult to score in the playoffs than it is in the regular season. But recent history doesn\u2019t bear that out. Scoring actually went up a tick in the 2023 and 2025 postseasons, and only went down a couple of tenths of a goal per game in 2024. It\u2019s a Dallas problem, not a league-wide one.<\/p>\n
Of course, confidence is never an issue for Dallas, which has made a habit of losing Game 1 and winning series anyway. But the Stars certainly don\u2019t make it easy on themselves.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe know this time of year, goals are harder to come by,\u201d Steel said. \u201cBut we also know what works for us. We just have to get back to that. If we do the right things, we know the goals are going to come.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dallas didn\u2019t do any of the right things in Game 1. It was passive to the point of timidity, showing a baffling lack of energy for a playoff opener on home ice. It was disjointed, playing not as a five-man unit but as a collection of lost souls. And the simple fact is, Minnesota\u2019s stars stepped up in Game 1. Dallas\u2019 did not.<\/p>\n
If Glen Gulutzan learned anything about stifling the Stars offense while serving as an Oilers assistant in those past two conference finals, he wasn\u2019t giving away any clues after Sunday\u2019s optional practice. But he didn\u2019t sugarcoat his team\u2019s performance in Game 1, either. From breakouts to neutral-zone play to the offensive zone, Gulutzan found plenty to be unhappy about. Rather than seeing any sort of trend or tactical issue, though, he simply chalked it up to poor effort and poor execution.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery part of our game should be a little bit better \u2014 or needs to be a little bit better \u2014 on Monday,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
A little bit won\u2019t do it. The Stars need to be a lot better against a very strong and very engaged Wild team.<\/p>\n
So what can Dallas do to unleash its offensive potential? It\u2019s three simple steps, one for each zone. And it\u2019s hardly groundbreaking stuff. It\u2019s Hockey 101, but that\u2019s a course the Stars flunked in Game 1.<\/p>\n
1. Be more aggressive on \u201csecond quicks\u201d in the defensive zone: In hockey parlance, a \u201csecond quick\u201d is a means of support. When there\u2019s a puck battle, particularly in the corner or along the wall, you want your teammate to be the first one to join the fray \u2014 to \u201cquick\u201d-ly be the \u201csecond\u201d man in. It\u2019s akin to a trap in basketball, where two players converge on one opponent in an effort to create a turnover. If a defender wins that one-on-one puck battle, the second quick is the likeliest player to pick up the loose puck, giving a team a chance for a clean breakout and perhaps an odd-man rush in transition.<\/p>\n
Dallas prides itself on its defensive stinginess, and it starts with second quicks. There was none of that in Game 1. Effort, of course, is a major factor in the defensive zone. Minnesota pressed on the forecheck, and Dallas just sat back and accepted it.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe do have to get out in transition, and (get) our legs moving a little bit more,\u201d Gulutzan said. \u201cWe didn\u2019t take the ice that was in front of us. We were trying to sit back and make plays out of the rocking chair a little bit. That\u2019s something that we haven\u2019t done much this year, but it certainly came up last game.\u201d<\/p>\n
2. Be cleaner through the neutral zone: The Stars talk a lot about being \u201cconnected,\u201d moving as a five-man unit, maintaining clean passing lanes and forcing opponents to spread themselves thin in defensive transition. But Dallas could barely complete a pass in the neutral zone in Game 1. Sloppy breakouts led to even sloppier neutral-zone play. On the few occasions Dallas defensemen found the puck on their sticks, they struggled to hit forwards in stride with hard, flat passes. The clumsy nature of the Stars\u2019 transition attempts made it easy for Minnesota to clog up the neutral zone, step up and take the puck right back.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd when we did get out clean, we didn\u2019t make the next play,\u201d Gulutzan said. \u201cWe weren\u2019t connected. We didn\u2019t stack any good plays upon good plays on each other at all. That was the thing. We had some opportunities at times to do that, and we never executed.\u201d<\/p>\n
Minnesota\u2019s stout defensive game had plenty to do with that.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought we limited rushes against, which obviously helps,\u201d Wild defenseman Brock Faber said. \u201cWe were making smart puck decisions \u2026 that caused us to change at the right times and not get caught out there. That\u2019s when bad things happen, obviously. Limiting a team like Dallas as best we can is doing things that don\u2019t let them feel comfortable in a game. I thought we outplayed them. We took it to them last night.\u201d<\/p>\n
3. Be harder on the forecheck in the offensive zone: Again, it\u2019s the most basic of hockey strategies, and it\u2019s the one Dallas prides itself on most. But Dallas had no forecheck to speak of until the game was already out of hand in the second period. Seemingly every time the Stars entered the zone, Minnesota promptly retrieved the puck without any resistance and carried it right back out. That\u2019s how you finish 40 minutes of play with just one high-danger scoring chance.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have to get back to our identity,\u201d Colin Blackwell said. \u201cA hard-nosed, forechecking game has been our game the whole entire year. And (in Game 1), we didn\u2019t get much on the forecheck at all. We\u2019ve got to get back to that. It\u2019s not always going to be pretty, but that gritty playoff style of hockey is going to be successful for us. Especially against them.\u201d<\/p>\n
With big power forwards such as Rantanen and Robertson, and scrappy role players such as Steel, Justin Hryckowian, Radek Faksa and Blackwell, this shouldn\u2019t be an issue for the Stars. But it was in each of the past two conference finals against Edmonton. And it was again Saturday night against Minnesota.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s just getting into the interior, putting more stress on teams instead of one-and-dones,\u201d Robertson said. \u201cEspecially in the playoffs, with the momentum swings and everything. If you can hem teams in and tilt that ice, you build momentum. And momentum is everything in the playoffs.\u201d<\/p>\n
Right now, Minnesota has all the momentum. All Dallas has is a lousy effort and one empty-calorie power-play goal to show for it.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s all fixable. Dallas has the firepower. But it had better get fixed in a hurry. Because we\u2019ve seen this movie before, and it doesn\u2019t usually end well for the Stars. Waiting around for Rantanen or Robertson to go supersonic isn\u2019t going to cut it. It\u2019s about execution, yes. But almost everything the Stars need to do offensively starts with effort.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnytime a night like that happens, there are adjustments to make,\u201d Blackwell said. \u201cBut I just thought they outworked us. They played more desperate, and this time of year, the more desperate team is going to be happy with the results. I lose sleep over getting outworked. Because that\u2019s something that everybody in this room can control. The system stuff\u2019s always going to be there, and there are little adjustments to make throughout the course of a seven-game series. But it\u2019s a mindset more than anything. And we need to have that right mindset.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DALLAS \u2014 What Mikko Rantanen did in a four-game span last spring is the stuff of legend, the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":556641,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5117],"tags":[196,147,5278,5,38,4,197],"class_list":{"0":"post-556640","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-dallas-stars","8":"tag-dallas","9":"tag-dallas-stars","10":"tag-dallasstars","11":"tag-hockey","12":"tag-minnesota-wild","13":"tag-nhl","14":"tag-stars"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116436810056050243","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556640","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=556640"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556640\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/556641"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=556640"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=556640"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=556640"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}