Stars’ Mikko Rantanen continues to assert his playoff dominance

Mikko Rantanen has been on another level for the Dallas Stars through the 2025 Stanley Cup Playoffs, and he added a second hat-trick of the postseason in a 3-2 Game 1 victory over the Winnipeg Jets. 

He already was the first player in NHL history to have four-point periods in back-to-back games from Game 6 and Game 7 against the Colorado Avalanche in Round 1, and on Wednesday against Winnipeg, he also became the first NHL player to put up multiple three-goal periods in a single playoffs. 

On Thursday’s episode of Daily Faceoff Live, Tyler Yaremchuk and Frank Seravalli dove into the Finnish superstar’s electric postseason so far. 

Yaremchuk:  The Stars’ star scores a hat trick for the second straight game, the second time in under a week, Frank, and he was just simply brilliant last night. What’s impressed me the most about this, and not that I obviously wasn’t watching Mikko Rantanen before, but he has this ability…he just flips a switch and takes over a hockey game for 10 minutes.

Seravalli: The way the goals have come in bunches has been kind of unbelievable as well, like he just turns it on for one period? 

He is one of the most decorated playoff players ever. He’s got only one Stanley Cup, yes. But if you go to – as Jason Gregor pointed out in the DFO Rundown today – the top 10 scorers, points per game wise, that have played at least 50 career playoff games… Mikko Rantanen has 116 points in 89 career playoff games. That’s six all-time in points per game. The guys ahead of him, Leon Draisaitl, Connor McDavid, Wayne Gretzky, Mario Lemieux and Nathan MacKinnon. 

This notion of Joe Sakic and Chris McFarland sitting at a podium this week, diagnosing the Avalanche getting torched by their former player, and saying we didn’t think we could win with three guys making that much money, or we didn’t think we could be a successful team or build… I’m thinking: ‘How could you afford not to when you see the level of production and the play for Rantanen?’

Catch the rest of the Mikko Rantanen segment and the full episode here…