Heika’s Take: Stars make all sorts of history in riveting Game 7 comeback win

In a strange way, the Stars may have had one of their biggest wins in franchise history on Saturday.

Sure, it was just the First Round of the playoffs. And, yes, the first two periods were nothing to gawk at. But in overcoming a 2-0 third period deficit to beat the Colorado Avalanche, 4-2, in Game 7 at American Airlines Center, Dallas stunned the hockey world with a gritty performance against a talented team that seemed all but destined for the Second Round.

“Like coach Pete said in the speech to us at the end, ‘There was never a doubt,’” Dallas forward Wyatt Johnston said of the humorous comment from coach Pete DeBoer. “Not the way we drew it up but that just shows how special of a group we have here. Just battling back. It was a really cool game to be a part of.”

In taking the victory, the lads in Victory Green accomplished some special things.

One, they beat a very good Avalanche team that featured two of the finalists for the Ted Lindsay Award, given to the player voted most valuable by the NHL Players Association.

Two, they did it without two of their own best players, defenseman Miro Heiskanen and forward Jason Robertson, who missed the entire series with injuries. Three, new forward Mikko Rantanen ingratiated himself to both the team and the entire state of Texas in the process.

Rantanen spent nearly a decade with the Avalanche and helped them win the 2022 Stanley Cup. He was due a big contract extension and the Avalanche couldn’t work one out, so they traded him to Carolina in January. Rantanen wasn’t a good fit there and they couldn’t get a contract extension done, so the Hurricanes traded him to Dallas in March. To get that deal done, the Stars gave up two first-round picks, two third-round picks and young forward Logan Stankoven. They then signed Rantanen to an eight-year extension that makes him the team’s highest paid player at an average salary of $12 million starting next season.

So getting the big 28-year-old winger to be a big part of the team is crucial. Consider Saturday a big step in that process.

"It's safe to say he's arrived,” DeBoer said of Rantanen. “Let’s be honest, he took over the series in the last three or four games. He just decided that we were not going to go home, and we were not going to lose.”

Rantanen finished Game 7 with three goals and an assist and now has 11 points (5 goals, 6 assists) in the past three games. With his team down 2-0 early in the third period, he started playing on three different lines, injecting hope into a capacity crowd at American Airlines Center that had been lulled to sleep by the first two periods. Rantanen scored on a nice pass from Oskar Bäck to make it 2-1 with 12 minutes left in the third. He then created a wraparound goal situation by driving the net and banking a puck off of Colorado defenseman Samuel Girard’s skate. Thomas Harley and Matt Duchene helped make that happen.

Rantanen then was part of a tic-tac-toe with Duchene that ended in Johnston scoring the game-winner from a hard angle on the power play. And for good measure, he took a beautiful bank pass from Tyler Seguin to score an empty-netter and complete a hat trick.

He was definitely the straw that stirred the drink, but oh what a tonic the Stars concocted. Bottom line, Dallas has been wracked by adversity all season, and it has managed the bumps with team play. Bäck started his career in the minors and has battled to become an important fourth-liner in his rookie season. Harley has had a breakthrough season while Heiskanen has been injured and currently leads the 2025 playoffs in time on ice. Duchene was spectacular in the regular season while trying to find a home with his fifth team, but has been hoping for a bigger impact in the playoffs. And Seguin missed most of the regular season following hip surgery and is now trying to find his stride in the postseason.

All of that hunger and drive was on display on Saturday.

"I couldn't be prouder of our group because we had to do it a different way,” DeBoer said of the injuries and adversity that made his team grow. “We look like a different team with those two guys [Heiskanen and Robertson] in the lineup, like anybody does. You take two key players out of anybody's lineup and your team looks different. What I liked about it was, we look different, but we found a way, and that's the most important part."

The Stars have done that a lot. They stumbled down the stretch in the regular season and lost Game 1 to Colorado. But they bounced back and won Games 2 and 3 in overtime. They then were crushed by the Avalanche in Game 4, but routed them on home ice to win Game 5. Then, Colorado outgunned Dallas in Game 6 and looked like the better team to start Game 7. But, somehow, the Stars made the necessary plays.

Jake Oettinger was huge, as he made several big saves and kept the Stars within shooting range. The group of defensemen was significant, as they filled in for Heiskanen and helped prop up Harley, who is carrying a heavy burden at age 23.

“That core, if you put the names up on the board, there's not a lot of household names there,” DeBoer said of Harley, Esa Lindell, Cody Ceci, Ilya Lyubushkin, Lian Bichsel and Alexander Petrovic. “Thomas Harley, we had to overplay him because of the situation with Miro out, but those other five guys just battled and scratched. It wasn't pretty. What I liked about what they did is they responded, they locked it down tonight and they gave us a chance to win. We shut down a lot of their rush and those guys grinded, they grinded hard all series."

And remember, this was against Nathan MacKinnon, Cale Makar, Gabriel Landeskog and a group of depth forwards that made this one of the deepest Avalanche teams in recent history.

“It’s tough because you put your heart and soul into the whole year, the series, all of it and then you’re in a good position and then it slips away on you,” said Colorado coach Jared Bednar. “So, it’s tough because I know how hard these guys worked and how bad they wanted it and that’s all you really think of at this point.”

For the Stars, the thinking now goes to who they might face in the Second Round. With a win like Saturday’s, confidence is certainly brimming.

“We have such a great group, and I think we have so much confidence in our team that we can beat anyone,” Johnston said. “It’s great to go against a team that’s one of the best in the league, in Colorado. they obviously know what it takes, having won a Cup a couple of years ago, and they have some amazing players, and they play really hard. So for us, it’s great to gain that confidence in beating a team like that and just try to build on it. But I think, as a group, we have that confidence that we can win any series against anyone.”

And while there are still more stories to write in this season, there is a chance we will look back on Saturday as a defining moment in franchise history.

"I think there's something special going on,” DeBoer said. “It sure doesn't feel like we've only won one round and we're just getting started. That was an absolute gauntlet of a series, but I believe there's something special going on."

This story was not subject to the approval of the National Hockey League or Dallas Stars Hockey Club.

Mike Heika is a Senior Staff Writer for DallasStars.com and has covered the Stars since 1994. Follow him on X @MikeHeika.