Rantanen's Game 7 hat trick and the trade still shaping Stars-Avalanche

Thirty-one seconds into the third period of Game 7, Nathan MacKinnon snapped a puck past Jake Oettinger and the arena in Dallas went quiet. Colorado led 2-0. One period stood between the Avalanche and the second round.

On the other bench sat the player Colorado knew better than anyone. Mikko Rantanen had spent 10 years with the Avalanche and won the Stanley Cup with them in 2022. Through the first four games of this series against his old team, he had not scored once.

What he did over the next 20 minutes is the reason tonight's Stars-Avalanche game in Denver feels bigger than a mid-October date on the schedule.

Traded twice in six weeks

The story starts in January 2025, when Colorado traded Rantanen to Carolina. The Avalanche got back Martin Necas, Jack Drury, a 2025 second-round pick and a 2026 fourth-rounder, per TSN. Rantanen had 25 goals and 64 points in 49 games for Colorado that season before the deal.

Carolina never got settled with him. He managed two goals and six points in 13 games as a Hurricane and told the team he would not sign an extension before the trade deadline. So on deadline day Carolina moved him again, this time to Dallas, in a deal that came with an eight-year, $96 million extension, according to the Associated Press.

That set up a first-round matchup in 2025 with a built-in plot: Rantanen and the Stars against his original team.

Dallas already had a history of ending Colorado's seasons. In the second round of 2024, the Stars beat the Avalanche in six games. The series ended at 11:42 of the second overtime of Game 6, on a goal by Matt Duchene, a former Avalanche draft pick. Colorado's only goal that night was a power-play wrist shot by Rantanen, still wearing an Avalanche sweater.

Twenty minutes in Dallas

For four games in 2025, Rantanen was quiet against his old teammates: no goals and one assist. Then the series turned. He had three points in Game 5 and four more in Game 6, a 7-4 Colorado win that forced a seventh game. The AP noted it was a four-point period for him in Game 6, and he was about to do it again.

At 7:49 of the third, Rantanen beat Mackenzie Blackwood to make it 2-1. At 12:02, Cale Makar went off for tripping. On the power play that followed, Rantanen carried the puck behind the net and tried a wraparound. It went in off the skate of Avs defenseman Samuel Girard. Tie game.

Then came the swing. At 15:47, Jack Drury, one of the players Colorado received for Rantanen, was called for holding. Seventeen seconds later, Wyatt Johnston scored on the power play to put Dallas ahead with 3:56 left, and Rantanen picked up an assist. He finished it with an empty-net goal with 3 seconds remaining. Dallas 4, Colorado 2.

It was the first third-period hat trick in a Game 7 in NHL history, per theScore, and his first career playoff hat trick. The AP reported he was only the second player ever with four points in the third period of a Game 7. He finished the series with five goals and seven assists, and 11 of those 12 points came in the last three games.

"He just decided that we were not going to go home," Stars coach Pete DeBoer said afterward. DeBoer moved to 9-0 in Game 7s. On the other side, it was Colorado's seventh straight Game 7 loss going back to 2002. Rantanen said the handshake line was emotional, and that he still thinks of his former teammates as brothers.

Round two of the rematch, this week

Fast forward to this season. The teams are in the middle of a home-and-home, and Tuesday's opener in Dallas belonged to the other side of that trade.

Necas, who went to Colorado in the Rantanen trade, scored both of his goals in the second period: a slap shot at 3:05 and a power-play snap shot at 16:14 that made it 3-1 and held up as the winner. Colorado won 3-2. Rantanen played 21:37 and did not record a shot on goal.

It was not a polite night. Radek Faksa and Fedor Svechkov fought late in the first period. At 6:46 of the second, MacKinnon dropped the gloves with Roope Hintz, who later scored the Stars' second goal at 3:17 of the third.

Tonight the series moves to Ball Arena. Dallas comes in at 2-3-1 and 0-3-0 against Central Division teams, per the AP game preview, while Colorado is 4-2 and listed as the home favorite. The same preview lists Duchene as out with an abdomen injury and Johnston as day to day with an illness.

What it means on the board

• Necas is the player this rivalry keeps pointing back to. He scored on both of his shots Tuesday in 23:24 of ice time, with 4:11 on the power play. That kind of usage is what drives shots-on-goal and points markets, and his 2+ shots prop was on our board and cashed.
• One quiet night is not a trend. Rantanen's zero-shot game came in 21:37 of ice time, so for his shots and points markets, the full-season sample matters more than Tuesday.
• Special teams carried weight in both games. Two of the five goals Tuesday came on the power play, and the 2025 Game 7 winner came 17 seconds into a man advantage. Penalty-heavy rivalry games lean on the top power-play units, which is where points props live.
• Both starters played Tuesday: Blackwood made 24 saves on 26 shots and Oettinger made 22 on 25. On the second night of a back-to-back, the confirmed starter is the first thing to check before any saves or totals market.

Follow tonight with the NHL board and free picks, read our Tuesday Avalanche-Stars recap, or brush up on how player props work.

21+. Research and commentary, not betting advice.