Rantanen’s revenge, Marchand vs. Maple Leafs, and the biggest storylines to watch in Round 2

Anthony Trudeau
Anthony Trudeau(atrud00)
May 6, 2025, 13:58 EDT
Rantanen’s revenge, Marchand vs. Maple Leafs, and the biggest storylines to watch in Round 2
Credit: Jerome Miron-Imagn Images

The Winnipeg Jets’ epic comeback victory in a marathon Game 7 against the St. Louis Blues last Sunday marked the end of a riveting first round of the 2025 Stanley Cup Playoffs. Three double overtimes. Two Game 7s. One point six seconds left. 

Now, the contenders have separated from the pretenders, at least until the process repeats itself over the next two weeks.

With regular season results out the window and a series sampling to go off of, countless storylines have emerged. Will Mikko Rantanen’s rampage fire the Dallas Stars to a third-straight conference final berth? Can Connor Hellebuyck navigate gargantuan pressure to recapture his Vezina form? And will Brad Marchand win another term as mayor of Toronto? 

Read on for more of the plot threads that will define the conference semifinal round.

After his revenge beatdown of the Avalanche, the real Mikko Rantanen is back

The Rantanen trade made good sense for the Colorado Avalanche at the time. They erased what would have been their second $12-million+ cap hit in time to extend Cale Makar in two seasons and got a nifty Rantanen replacement in Marty Necas. Gabriel Landeskog’s ($7-million AAV through 2029) triumphant return only exacerbated Colorado’s need to clean up the books. With Makar and reigning MVP Nathan MacKinnon above him on the totem pole, ‘Moose’ was the odd man out. 

Alas, Rantanen’s banishment to the Eastern Conference didn’t take; the Hurricanes dealt the sniper to the Stars after a few weeks of lackluster on-ice results and fitful contract negotiations. Still, after two cross-country moves in as many months, Rantanen was not the player opponents had come to fear over the past eight seasons. Cue the “MacKinnon merchant” accusations, which grew louder as the Stars went winless over their final seven regular-season games. Even Dallas coach Pete DeBoer seemed to concede Rantanen needed an offseason to get right by replacing him on the first line with veteran Evgenii Dadonov for Game 1 against the Avs. That demotion, and any of Rantanen’s other misadventures over the last four months, is ancient history after the Finn willed the shorthanded Stars to Round 2 with a record-setting run of individual dominance.

After an ugly first four games (1 A, -4), Rantanen finally seemed to remember he’s one of the top five wingers in hockey, notching a goal and three points during a 6-2 statement win in Game 5. Two nights later, Rantanen and linemate Roope Hintz earned a share of the NHL’s record for points in a playoff period with four apiece. When that wasn’t enough to stave off defeat in a wild 7-4 shootout, Rantanen reached even greater heights during the elimination game. After Colorado extended its lead to 2-0 early in the third frame to deflate the Dallas crowd, the 28-year-old singlehandedly shattered the Avalanche’s Cup dreams with the first third-period hat trick in Game 7 history. With the Colorado chapter of his career emphatically in the rearview, it’s on to Winnipeg. The Stars, who have traded chances at a dangerous rate for months, will hope Rantanen isn’t done making history quite yet.

Is it better to survive a scare or breeze through Round 1?

The Stars rode a seven-game skid into the postseason, shipped chances like a lottery team after Miro Heiskanen’s injury, and lost star sniper Jason Robertson during Game 82 of the regular season. Despite those hurdles and a matchup against the tentative favorites to win the conference, Dallas is still here thanks to the brilliance of Rantanen, Hintz, and Jake Oettinger (2.85 GAA, .911 SV%). Robertson and Heiskanen are due back any day, and, surely, it only gets easier from here. That reasoning was enough to make the Stars betting favorites to escape the Western Conference ahead of the second round, but does it hold up in practice?

Yes and no. Over the past 10 standard (see: no pandemic) postseasons, seven of the 20 Stanley Cup finalists survived a first-round Game 7. That’s tied with five-game victories as the most common result among conference champions, which confirms that winners of tough first-round battles come away stronger. In recent seasons, the Tampa Bay Lightning and Florida Panthers notably erased series deficits to knock off the Toronto Maple Leafs and Boston Bruins, respectively, and rode that momentum to the Cup Final.

The bad news for Dallas and its fellow Game 7 victor, Winnipeg? Tampa and Florida both lost in the Final in those years. Only one of the past 10 champs needed a winner-takes-all game to get out of the conference quarterfinals, while six did so in five games or fewer. Champions don’t typically play with their food in the early rounds, and often go into the Stanley Cup Final as the fresher, healthier team. That’s music to the ears of the Panthers, who trounced Tampa in five after a pair of grueling postseason journeys. Ditto for the Washington Capitals and Carolina Hurricanes, both of whom earned a few extra days of rest ahead of their Game 1 matchup later tonight.

Connor Hellebuyck is fighting to save his reputation along with the Jets’ season

Connor Hellebuyck’s legacy should be beyond question by now. Though it’s not official yet, the Vezina Trophy will become his for the third time in a few short weeks. The other netminders to win the award three times in the voting era? Roy, Hasek, and Brodeur. If that company wasn’t exclusive enough, Hellebuyck could also become the fourth goalie to claim the Hart Trophy as league MVP since Jacques Plante in 1962. In other words, this spring should be a celebratory time for the future Hall-of-Famer, who added a Presidents’ Trophy win to his CV earlier this season. Instead, it has turned into a nightmare.

Hellebuyck is supposed to be Winnipeg’s biggest weapon in the playoffs, but he’s become a distracting liability in crunch time. He was mediocre against the Stanley Cup champion Golden Knights in 2023 before imploding completely against the Avalanche last postseason. Those abortive playoff runs meant the pressure was on for the 31-year-old to nip the ‘choke artist’ chatter in the bud in Round 1 against the eighth-seeded Blues. It did not go famously.

It’s become trendy to take cheap shots at Hellebuyck, but you don’t have to be mean-spirited to acknowledge he was a problem against the Blues (.830 SV%). Three road starts, three early showers, and three crushing losses repeatedly halted the Jets’ momentum in the series. Things went marginally better at home (they could hardly have gone worse), but if it weren’t for an all-time clutch tip-in from Cole Perfetti, the three early tallies ‘Helly’ shipped in Game 7 would have ended Winnipeg’s season. The second round brings Hellebuyck yet another opportunity to establish himself as a winner against Rantanen, Hintz, and the Stars. If the Stanley Cup Playoffs don’t provide enough pressure, the series could make or break his big-game legacy.

Can the Toronto Maple Leafs (finally) handle Brad Marchand?

The Florida Panthers are a nightmare playoff matchup, even before you factor in the secret rule that allows Sam Bennett to brain one of the other team’s best players once per series. They bowled over the star-studded Tampa Bay Lightning with frightening ease, stifling their creativity and taking the series to physical depths where the Lightning drowned. If that all sounds familiar, it’s because that’s the exact method of victory Florida has used to win eight of its nine playoff series since Matthew Tkachuk came on board, including a five-game demolition of Toronto in 2023. Can the Leafs hope to stop a repeat performance now that their old rival Brad Marchand is a Panther?

Marchand isn’t the player he once was, but there might not be a bigger third-line difference maker in the NHL than the former Bruin. In Round 1, Marchand, Anton Lundell, and Eetu Luostarinen tormented the Lightning’s lackluster depth as Florida scored four 5-on-5 goals during their matchup with Nick Paul and Gage Goncalves. ‘The Rat’ is a big upgrade on Vladimir Tarasenko, who rounded out the third line last year, and Toronto has looked unprepared to stop him (again).

Even as the Maple Leafs jumped out to a 4-1 lead and held on to win 5-4 in Game 1, Marchand ate their lunch, just like he always does (10 G, 31 P in 29 playoff GP vs. TOR). His line caught the Leafs’ fourth unit (Lorentz-Laughton-Jarnkrok) on the ice for just over three minutes, all the time they needed to hand them a dash two. The matchup of Lundell and Laughton was particularly discouraging for Toronto: the Cats outshot the Maple Leafs 5-1 and pulled in more than 96% of expected goals during a five-minute bloodbath. The Maple Leafs held serve, but to advance to their first Eastern Conference Final in more than two decades, they must find a way to counter Florida’s checking line. After 15 years, Marchand is still their boogeyman.

Are the Golden Knights still Edmonton’s kryptonite?

Two years ago, the Vegas Golden Knights wrote the playbook on how to beat Connor McDavid’s Oilers. They attacked in waves, balancing three lines and three defensive pairs that didn’t have to hide from McDavid at 5-on-5. They attacked Leon Draisaitl, then a bad defensive player, with top centerman Jack Eichel and dropped Draisaitl’s series rating to -5. Most importantly, they avoided the penalty box like the black plague after the Oilers burned them for five power-play tallies over the first two games. 

Nobody, save for the Panthers, has eliminated Edmonton since, but do the Knights still have what it takes to execute Bruce Cassidy’s 2023 game plan against the 2025 Oilers? Their shutdown depth at center took a hit in the first round when ‘Wild Bill’ Karlsson, their top defensive forward, started skating on Eichel’s line with Mark Stone. That unit was stellar against the Wild, winning its 5-on-5 minutes 3-0 and helping Vegas finally slow down Kirill Kaprizov, but using three matchup forwards in one shot creates lineup holes for the Oilers to target. Tomas Hertl had some two-way chops in his younger days, but he and Brandon Saad are too slow to share the ice with McDavid consistently. 

Add Draisaitl’s defensive progress and the fact that he’s skating with McDavid, and the matchup (Eichel vs. Draisaitl) Vegas exploited in 2023 is gone. At least the defensive pair that fared best against McDavid two years ago, Brayden McNabb and Shea Theodore, is still kicking. They had some uncharacteristically sloppy moments against Minnesota but did well to limit high-danger looks (63.64% high-danger chance share). The Golden Knights can take heart from a fairly recent series win over the Oilers, but they may need to adjust their strategy somewhat to repeat the trick. They’re a little slower, a little older and a little shakier on defense this go around, while the Oilers looked as dangerous as they have in the last 12 months in a gentleman’s sweep of the Kings.

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