Is there something in the water when it comes to Dallas sports? The Cowboys are in a constant state of existential crisis, the Mavericks traded Luka Doncic in exchange for irrelevancy, and now the city’s only playoff bright spot, the Stars, are struggling to work out what’s wrong with their ace player Mikko Rantanen.
Rantanen has been worse than a non-factor in the first two games of the playoffs against the Avalanche, he’s actively hurt them. The wing has yet to register a point, he’s attempted six shots on goal without result, and is a -3 on ice this series. Rantanen also rivals the worst young players on the Stars with an abysmal 39.1% Corsi (which measures 5v5 puck control), and his lacking defense was already a known quantity, but has showed up this series.
What makes this so bad is that Rantanen was supposed to be the missing piece. The star (forgive the pun) who was going to turn Dallas into a potential Stanley Cup champion. Instead it’s feeling a lot more like the clock struck midnight and the Stars got a pumpkin at the worst possible time. Rantanen’s poor play has raised so many questions that the team is trying to justify it in the most labored fashion, saying he’s not used to playing with the team, and “has a lot of distractions” since being traded.
It’s as if this isn’t the life of every player who has ever been dealt at the deadline. However, it’s what Stars coach Pete DeBoer said about Rantanen’s play that should sound alarm bells for Dallas fans.
“He played in one place for almost a decade, and he played with one guy (MacKinnon) for almost a decade. And that guy — no one else in the league has that guy, that plays that exact game. You’ve been working off a certain partner like that for a decade. It’s not an easy transition.”
The major concern about Rantanen, and one that still hasn’t been defied — is that his stat-stuffing was a product of Nathan MacKinnon, hockey’s greatest distributor, whose passing brilliance sets players up to take the glory. With a staggering 173 assists in the last two seasons, MacKinnon is a game-changing player, and that led to questions whether Rantanen was truly an elite scorer — or a benefactor. It was this internal struggle the Avs had when they decided not to give Rantanen the massive contract he wanted, instead believing they could find a new scorer. So far that bet has paid off, with several players stepping up to fill the void, even if they don’t have the eye-popping numbers that Rantanen put up.
The Stars simply don’t have time to wait for Rantanen to get comfortable. You don’t get that luxury when you’re being paid as much as he is to perform. It’s not just the lack of numbers in the box score, but how sluggish and unengaged he’s looked while playing. Right now it’s safe to say the Stars are a dramatically worse team than before Mikko arrived, and that’s a hard pill to swallow — especially when the guy Dallas traded away for him, Logan Stankoven, scored two goals for the Hurricanes in his playoff debut, and that’s before we talk about the four draft picks (including two firsts) the Stars sent to Carolina.
While it’s absolutely fair to acknowledge that this has been a tumultuous year for Rantanen, traded to Carolina, then playing in Canada in the Four Nations, then traded to Dallas — that’s also making entirely too many excuses for him. If you’re a top player you’re expected to step up. Struggling to perform is one thing, but struggling to give effort is another entirely.
All is not lost this series. The Stars and Avs are tied 1-1 as the series heads to Colorado, but the expectation was that Dallas would (and should) get out to a 2-0 lead and fairly easily. Instead they were blown out in Game 1, and bailed out in overtime in Game 2. It’s difficult to imagine Rantanen will magically turn everything around with the emotional pressure of returning to the city he called home for a decade.
On some level we should have all seen this coming. When it comes to sports Dallas has been deprived of nice things recently. Of course the Stars would end up with a can’t-miss player like Mikko Rantanen only to see him vanish when the team needs him the most. It’s par for the course when it comes to the most down-bad sports city in the country.
At least the Wings have Paige Bueckers.