Kiitos, Mikko: Rantanen’s Game 7 takeover the perfect icing on a thrilling series

Kiitos, Mikko. Kiitos erittäin paljon.

The hope is that’s the translation of the phrase “thank you very much” in Finnish, but I’m not 100 percent sure. Seems like we’re all going to have to start learning the language of Suomi here in Texas after what Mikko Rantanen did on Saturday night. The newest member of the Stars has gone through one of the most frenetic seasons an athlete can endure, and he came out smiling after a hat trick in Game 7 to beat his old team, the Colorado Avalanche, 4-2, at American Airlines Center.

The Brothers Grimm couldn’t construct a fairy tale this complicated, and even Pixar would probably consider the script too schmaltzy. Yet, there was Rantanen giving a moose hug to his superstar (former) linemate Nathan MacKinnon in the handshake line that would send his Avalanche brothers home for the summer.

Shocking.

"You can't write it up any better than that,” Stars goalie Jake Oettinger said. “Guy comes over, knocks out his old team, puts the team on his back. One of the best individual performances I've seen in the playoffs in my life. So happy for him."

And that might be the most important part of this whole story. Rantanen has gone through a whirlwind this season and uprooted his entire life because that’s the business of pro sports. Teams have salary caps, players want to get paid and that forces some tough decisions. So while Rantanen was perfectly happy in Denver, the machinations of big money sports forced him to deal with a topsy-turvy year. Could he have taken less money and stayed in Colorado? Sure. Could the Avalanche have made some other decisions to keep their top line together? Yes. But they traded Rantanen to Carolina in the hope that they could maintain their salary cap, keep their team balanced, and not have to see him too often.

As luck would have it, Rantanen wasn’t a fit in Carolina and the Hurricanes had to deal him. The team that said they wanted him and had the best offer? Your Dallas Stars. That, in itself, was a huge twist in the plot, as Dallas had a major change in philosophy to even consider the trade. The Stars have been built on the draft, and a big key to their depth is the fact they have been able to manage the cap as well as anybody. Miro Heiskanen is a good deal at $8.45 million, so is Roope Hintz. Jason Robertson is good value at $7.75 million and Matt Duchene is a steal at $3 million. That’s who the Stars are.

So when GM Jim Nill decided to not only give up two first-round picks, two third-round picks and Logan Stankoven to get Rantanen, there was a real recognition that this was a huge moment in franchise history, especially under Nill’s tenure. When he then signed Rantanen to an eight-year contract at $12 million per season, you could sense a seismic shift in the Stars’ business plates.

Stars owner Tom Gaglardi was meeting with the media recently and said this of the trade, “Obviously, I believe in the group. I traded three first-round picks. This is a team that we can win this thing with.”

In addition to the four picks for Rantanen, Dallas gave up a first and third round pick to get Mikael Granlund and Cody Ceci in an earlier deal. The transaction wire is a manifestation of just how hungry this team is for a championship. They haven’t won since 1999. They have made two trips to the Western Conference Final in the past two seasons, only to fall just short. They feel the time is now.

“I don’t like trading first-round picks,” Gaglardi said. “We traded three of them this year. It just kind of felt like this is what we had to do. Those decisions that we made, we’ll see in a couple weeks or so if they were worth it.”

On Saturday night, the debate on the deals was raging among the fans on social media. Dallas was down 1-0 on a shorthanded goal heading into the third period and looking flat. Then, on Colorado’s first shift of the third, MacKinnon scored to make it 2-0 and take all of the air out of the building. It seemed the Stars had done all of this for nothing.

And then Rantanen stepped up.

The 28-year-old is listed at 6-4, 215 and nicknamed “Moose,” so he is certainly a presence on the ice. He currently ranks seventh all-time in playoff points per game at 1.28, so he has done this before. He also had seven points in the previous two playoff games, so he was feeling it a bit. And just like that, he found an opening in the defense and sniped in a goal with 12 minutes left to make the score 2-1. Five minutes later, he made an incredible individual effort on the power play, barreling behind the net and attempted a wraparound shot. The puck deflected off the skate of Colorado defenseman Samuel Girard and into the net with six minutes left in regulation.

It was an incredible display of what Rantanen can do, and also of just how much the hockey gods affected this series. Several goals were deflections or bounces or breaks for both teams, and this was one, too. But, in the end, the team that worked hardest created their own luck, and Rantanen was definitely a part of that.

Three minutes later, Tyler Seguin drew a holding call, and the Stars’ power play went to work. Duchene made a fantastic cross-crease pass to Wyatt Johnston, and the 21-year-old popped in the game-winning goal. It was a play borne of the confidence that Rantanen provided, so it was perfect when Rantanen then got an empty-net goal for the historic hat trick.

“Let’s be honest, he took over the series in the last three or four games,” Stars coach Pete DeBoer said of the fact Rantanen and linemates Hintz and Granlund helped engineer a big win in Game 5 and almost did the same in Game 6. “He just decided that we were not going to go home, and we were not going to lose. This is the best league in the world, playing against one of the top five teams in the world, and what he did there down the stretch was special.”

Rantanen was humble in victory. He loves his brothers on the Avalanche and he didn’t want to cause them this pain, but they all understand sports. He also loves his new teammates and was ecstatic for their happiness.

“It’s emotional,” Rantanen said of shaking hands with the Avalanche after the game. “They’re my brothers for sure. Most of them I know really well and played with them for 10 years. We’re enemies in this series on the ice, but I always love them off the ice. But that’s how it goes. Yeah, it’s emotional for sure. Because everything happened so quick. It’s only a couple of months since I was still with them, playing with them, and chasing a playoff spot and all that stuff. And all of sudden, playing against them in a Game 7, emotional is the right word for sure.’’

In addition to the personal part, there is also the perception part. As it happens in the sports business, people take sides on deals. Rantanen has been great, but was he the Scottie Pippen to MacKinnon’s Michael Jordan? Was it worth what the Stars gave up to get him?

"I think he answered that question,” DeBoer said. “I've had a lot of playoff runs and I know I haven't had a player string together the three games he's strung together, Games 5, 6, and 7, how dominant he's been shift to shift."

And in the process, he has started a new chapter in his own book. The affable Finn not only fits in with his fellow countrymen, but with his whole team. He is a workout nut who leads by example, and he clearly knows how to play when the spotlight is brightest.

"It's safe to say he's arrived,” DeBoer said. “I think every situation is different. We had the benefit of the other Finns in the room. We also had the benefit of a motivated guy. This was Colorado and the team that he had played for for a decade. I don't know all the behind-the-scenes what went on there, but he was a motivated guy to make an impact in this series. He just got better and better."

The hope is it’s just the baby steps in a brilliant future. The eight-year contract extension doesn’t even start until next season. Rantanen is the center of a roster with a core that includes Esa Lindell, 30, Hintz, 27, Oettinger, 26, Heiskanen, 25, Robertson, 25, Thomas Harley, 23, and Johnston, 21. It’s one of the reasons Dallas was able to surrender the draft picks, because they have an incredible base and seem to have time to build the farm again.

And bottom line, the time is now. It was a grueling First Round, but it now opens the door for the next step. Can Dallas advance again to the Western Conference Final? Can it maybe take the next step under DeBoer? The Stars won that series with both Heiskanen (knee) and Robertson (lower body) sitting out. Either or both could come back for the next round, and that could be a huge boost. In addition, the current roster has seen players like Harley and Lian Bichsel…and Rantanen…step up. This has been one of the toughest seasons in recent Stars history and the scar tissue that has been built could make it one of the most memorable.

The Finns have a word for it, “sisu.”

Look it up. It seems you might be hearing it a lot around these parts.

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.