How NHL players, teams deal with the grind of back-to-back games
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Ryan S. Clark, NHL reporter
IT USED TO be that Nick Foligno, after playing a game then flying at least an hour — often to a city in a different time zone — and busing to the team hotel, would stay up until 2 a.m. or later, despite having to play another game less than 18 hours later.
Now, as a 36-year-old father, Foligno proudly shares that he’s usually in bed by 9 or 10 p.m. at the absolute latest.
Foligno is the oldest member of the Chicago Blackhawks, with more than a dozen players who are his junior by a decade or more. Watching his younger teammates this season has further validated his decision to go to bed so early.
“I’m lucky with all the young guys we have. You can see it in them,” Foligno said. “Thirty games in, they’re starting to come up to you like, ‘Man, I’m tired! This is crazy!’ So you do laugh because you’ve become that grizzled vet to it. But I remember being that age like, ‘Holy s—! We’re going to go play tonight?’ But that’s the grind of the game, and it’s what makes it what it is.”
Numerous factors make the NHL’s 82-game regular season such a grind. There’s the sheer number of games and the travel involved, which impacts some teams more than others. There’s the crisscrossing between borders and time zones at bizarre hours. There are the complications that come with such large traveling parties and the decision of when — or if — to sleep. Then there are the dreaded back-to-backs, two games in two nights.
All this while trying to win as many games as possible.
Teams and players have applied numerous philosophies to manage back-to-back games, with the recognition that there’s no perfect answer. Every situation is different.
“I hate back-to-backs more than anything.” Florida Panthers defenseman Aaron Ekblad said. “I’m a big proponent of the fact that we shouldn’t have them. … You can play every other day and your body is fine. As soon as you start throwing back-to-backs in there and play four games in six days, it leads to injuries. Guys are getting injured on back-to-backs all over the league.”
WHILE BACK-TO-BACKS are inevitable for every team, some teams have more on their schedule than others. This season, the average is 12 back-to-back sets per team, but there are outliers. The New Jersey Devils have the most back-to-backs with 16, while the Seattle Kraken have the fewest with seven. Of the 15 teams that have a dozen or more back-to-backs, all but three play in the Eastern Conference, where the travel is not as daunting as in the Western Conference.
To examine how back-to-back travel works for NHL teams and how their circumstances are different, ESPN looked at the back-to-back schedules for one team in each of the league’s four divisions: the Calgary Flames, New York Rangers, Panthers and Blackhawks.
The Rangers are in a city that’s relatively close to several teams within the Metropolitan Division and the Eastern Conference. Of their 12 back-to-back sets, eight have one home game and one road game while three have both games on the road. All but one of the back-to-back game sequences have at least one game in their home time zone, and their average flight time for the trips is one hour.
For the Panthers, playing in South Florida means they’re the southernmost team in the NHL and have only one team — the Tampa Bay Lightning — that’s less than an hour away by flight. Five of their eight back-to-backs are on the road, and only one has both games at home. Seven of those back-to-back sequences have at least one game in their home time zone, and their average flight time for the trips is 56 minutes.
Although the Blackhawks have a central location, they spend quite a bit of time in the air. Five of their 12 back-to-back sets have both games on the road, and six have at least one game in their home time zone. The Blackhawks’ average flight time for back-to-backs is 84 minutes, which means they’re going to spend nearly 30 more minutes on a plane in those situations than the Panthers and Rangers.
Of the four teams examined, the Flames seem to have the most demanding travel. Even though their eight back-to-backs are not as many as the Blackhawks and Rangers, they’re the second northernmost team in the NHL and are one of only three teams that play in the Mountain time zone. In their eight back-to-backs, three games will be played on Mountain time and their average flight time is 88 minutes.
“Sometimes, especially being in Calgary, the West has harder travel than the East,” said Flames defenseman Noah Hanifin, who played his first three seasons with the Carolina Hurricanes. “All the cities in the East are a little bit closer. For us, it can be more of a grind. The flights are also usually a little bit longer. Another thing is we’re always changing time zones. We’re going from one time zone to another in the West, which makes it a little bit tougher with the sleep schedule.”
Hanifin cited the challenges of living in the Mountain time zone. All 16 teams in the Eastern Conference are on Eastern time. Six of the Western Conference teams are on Central time, with another six are on Pacific time. The Arizona Coyotes are on Mountain time, but with most of Arizona not recognizing daylight saving time, there are two-plus months of the regular season (October, March and April) when teams there are essentially playing on Pacific time.
That leaves the Colorado Avalanche, the Edmonton Oilers and the Flames as the only teams that are based in the Mountain time zone full time. The flight from Calgary to Edmonton is just 24 minutes. Flying from Calgary to Denver takes slightly less than two hours, and Edmonton to Denver is a two-hour flight.
This season, the Flames will play 44 games in their time zone while the Rangers will have 65 games in their time zone.
“It does mess with you,” Hanifin said about being on Mountain time. “It can be a little tough on our sleep schedule, and that does add up over time.”
JONATHAN CHAREST IS the director of athlete sleep services and a behavioral sleep medicine specialist for the Centre for Sleep & Human Performance at the University of Calgary. Charest and four colleagues authored a 2021 study about the impact of distance and travel in back-to-back games in the NBA.
Charest, who also published a study on time zone changes, travel distance and performance in the NHL, said athletes are almost chronically out of order with their circadian rhythm, or internal clock. He said an Eastern Conference team that goes to Vancouver to play the Canucks is at a disadvantage because a player’s circadian clock is usually within the rhythm of his home city. For example, a Canadiens player’s body is used to games starting at 7 p.m. Eastern time. So for a game in Vancouver with a 7 p.m. Pacific time start, his circadian rhythm interprets it as being 10 p.m. Eastern time.
“When it’s the third period, it’s almost midnight for them,” Charest said. “You’ll have the commentators on the broadcast say, ‘Oh, it’s fatigue.’ It’s not necessarily fatigue; it’s that the body is answering to its own mileage. There is a fundamental disadvantage for the East Coast teams in that they have to take it one game at a time.”
Charest said it takes a day per time zone for the body’s circadian rhythm to adjust. So if the Canadiens are going to the Central time zone, it will take one day for players to adjust, while going to the Pacific time zone will require three days for their bodies to be fully adjusted.
In addition to dealing with time zone changes, just being on the road can contribute to fatigue. Charest said that makes it important for teams to manage their personnel to compensate.
“There’s some days when [a team flight] feels like it takes nine hours,” Foligno said.
The Panthers, the reigning Eastern Conference champions, have gone to great lengths to combat travel fatigue and keep players fresh over the course of a road trip. Ekblad said the Panthers’ athletic training and medical staffs bring cold tubs on every trip to offer an additional form of treatment.
When teams have a day off after a game, players are not as frantic when it comes to their postgame routines, which include everything from cooling down and getting dressed to seeing family and friends. After the first game of a back-to-back, they have to pack all those items into a much tighter window.
That’s one reason some players don’t sleep on planes when going from one city to the next on a back-to-back. The tight turnaround along with the adrenaline they have after a game leads many players to choose to stay awake rather than try to sleep because they know their sleep will get interrupted once they land.
“You still have that energy and are still fired up from the game,” San Jose Sharks forward Anthony Duclair said. “Guys tend to sleep a little later after games. You’re trying to force yourself to eat a little more and get the proper amount of rest. In the mornings, you want to sleep in. But the biggest thing is you want to get moving in the mornings and then try to get a good nap in.”
Panthers coach Paul Maurice said coaching the Winnipeg Jets while they played in the all-Canadian North Division during the truncated 2020-21 season allowed him to see value in staying over after games rather than immediately flying to the next city.
“It’s a bit of an ask,” Maurice said. “After a long road trip like Calgary, they’re going to want to get on that plane and they don’t care if they get home at 5 in the morning. But the cost of that is real. So we stay over, and we’re doing that a lot more. … We’ll give up the practice and just fly, get them back to the hotel and not get them off the plane to the hotel at 3 in the morning — that matters.”
Foligno said the Blackhawks and Boston Bruins, the team he played for the previous two seasons, provide players with supplements that include magnesium, which helps with falling asleep after a game.
Although Foligno was grateful for what the Blackhawks and Bruins did, he was impressed with how the Panthers approach being on the road.
“I wonder if more teams will adopt that,” Foligno said. “I didn’t know they did that. That’s actually pretty smart in a lot of ways.”
THE ONLY SNAG Foligno said he could see with staying over after the first game of a back-to-back would be if there was an issue that altered a team’s travel plans. He said leaving immediately after the first game provides some leeway in case something happens, such as a team needing a new plane.
Having to contend with unexpected logistics is something the Blackhawks know all too well. Earlier this season, they were flying from Edmonton to Seattle when fog diverted their flight to Portland, Oregon. Because they were flying from Edmonton, it was an international flight, so they had to wait on the tarmac. And when they finally arrived in Seattle, they were delayed by morning rush hour traffic.
“The biggest thing we worry about this time of year is the weather, and we can’t control that,” Blackhawks coach Luke Richardson said. “The last time [the Blackhawks came to Seattle], it wasn’t a back-to-back, but we lost a practice day because we didn’t get in until morning. We lost a day of practice, which is discouraging for a coach because you feel that’s the one time you can work on something.”
That is what makes team services personnel among the most valuable employees throughout the NHL.
From making sure the plane and flight crew are ready to leave on time to lining up charter buses and making sure a hotel can seamlessly accommodate a 55-person traveling party no matter the time of day or night, the team services crew is in charge of everything related to travel.
“With back-to-backs, fortunately, you’re never traveling four hours or losing too much off the clock,” said Sean O’Brien, who is the director of team operations for the Flames, “You want to get into the next city, get settled and, personally for me, you want to be ready if there is any sort of issue with something like weather. At least you’re in the next city. If you wait until the next morning, you don’t know what variables you’re dealing with.”
O’Brien, who has been in his role for 17 seasons, said the work doesn’t stop once a team reaches its hotel. While the players are sleeping, a team’s support staff will get up early to handle other items, such as breakfast and making sure there are ample conference rooms so the team can hold meetings without interruption.
EVEN WITH ALL those considerations, teams playing back-to-back games have won their share.
There have been 3,090 games played as part of a back-to-back over the past five seasons, according to ESPN Stats & Information data. (Some games are counted twice, when both teams were on a back-to-back.) The record for the team on a back-to-back in those games on either leg is .531. The winning percentage on the first half of a back-to-back is .555, while the winning percentage in the second half is .507.
Over that time, 25% of teams have won both games of a back-to-back and 30% have lost both. The winning percentage for the home team in either part of a back-to-back is .553, while the winning percentage for the road team is .520. A little more than 700 of those 3,090 games went to overtime.
“It’s not so much the back-to-back. It’s what goes on around the back-to-back,” Maurice said. “A back-to-back is not that difficult. But when you get into four [games] in six [nights] — if you get a four-game week, and we’re going to have one at the end of March and [another] in early April. Then they stack another four-game week up. So you’re not going to be playing eight games at home. You’re going to be traveling, and that’s where they get you.”
The sequence of games Maurice referenced is when the Panthers play five times (with one back-to-back) from March 23 to March 30. Then, from April 1 to April 6, they have another four games, with a back-to-back in the first two.
If players had a say in trying to manage back-to-backs over an 82-game schedule, what would they change?
“Guess you could say get rid of them and just play less games,” Panthers defenseman Brandon Montour said with a smile. “Earlier in a trip, I guess, maybe? You never really want it at the end of a trip. Or closer proximity with who you’re playing. That way you’re not huffing it on a flight to Florida to play the next night.”
Duclair said he would have back-to-backs on the front end of a trip. That would allow teams to settle into a regular routine for the rest of the trip.
Foligno said he doesn’t believe back-to-backs are the worst experience. But he does feel as if the travel logistics make it hard to “put the best product on the ice.”
“I know everyone goes through it and has a bad schedule,” Foligno said. “Some teams have way more back-to-backs than others, which I don’t understand how that works. You want the best product on the ice, and you’ve got to give guys a chance to recover and give their best too. That’s the frustrating part. … You want to give yourself the best chance to win. That’s where I get a little frustrated, but it happens to everyone.”
Ekblad suggested there could be alternatives. He said one way to make back-to-backs more manageable would be if the team playing on consecutive days was at home for both games. Or perhaps back-to-backs could be two games against the same opponent in the same city to eliminate travel and boost recovery.
He also had another idea.
“Abolish them. Get rid of them.” Ekblad said. “I mean, football players complain about Sunday to Thursday. That’s three to four days in between. We’re literally less than 24 hours in that time and that’s with travel. It’s nuts. It’s a high-speed game. Some cities don’t have the best ice. I’m not going to name any of them. The risk on the players is way more. I’m the [NHL Players’ Association] rep for the team, so I am just a big believer in player safety and taking care of things.”
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Ryan S. Clark
Peter DeBoer is always thinking. Especially the night before a Game 7. It’s just that arguably the greatest do-or-die coach in North American sports history is thinking more about what movie he’s going to watch rather than how he’s going to remain undefeated in another Game 7.
Anyone who thinks that the night before a Game 7 consists of DeBoer drinking a sixth cup of coffee while he and his assistants are reviewing game film is mistaken. That process started well before they even reached that point, with the strong reality that it likely started days before they even played Game 1.
DeBoer’s process isn’t dependent on Game 7. It’s something that has been several years in the making but still has room for adjustments. His approach is rooted in how he speaks to players, and the way he makes them feel after speaking to them. It’s how he approaches what goes into coaching, while knowing when to take a step back so his assistants feel empowered to do their jobs without someone looking over their proverbial shoulders.
The plan is simple: Be thoughtful, but don’t overthink.
“I think players want two or three things they can concentrate on,” DeBoer said. “Otherwise, the picture becomes muddy, and that tends to slow your processing down.”
Some variation of that message has defined George Peter DeBoer, an individual who, despite having a law degree, opted to pursue coaching. Not that DeBoer couldn’t have been an attorney. It’s just that becoming a coach has seen him go from what could have been a life filled with depositions to making a living by disposing of his opponents in winner-take-all contests.
DeBoer is 8-0 all time in Game 7s, and he could improve that record to 9-0 should the Dallas Stars beat the Colorado Avalanche on Saturday. A win would not only mean the Stars advance to the second round, but it would make DeBoer the NHL’s all-time leader in Game 7 victories, an honor he currently shares with Darryl Sutter.
Until then? DeBoer will think about hockey … to a point. When he reaches that point, that’ll be when his mind will shift toward what action, comedy, drama or rom-com he’ll watch to attain a sense of normalcy before trying to pull off the abnormal. Again.
“It’s crazy and I’m sure when I’m done and looking back, it’s going to be one of the things I’m really proud of, and I’m going to tell my grandkids about it hopefully,” DeBoer said of his Game 7 record. “I feel fortunate because I know how hard those players have played in those situations for me and how much work has gone into winning those. Also, how hard the staffs I’ve had have worked, because they don’t get enough credit for that.”
TRUST IS THE WORD that Chandler Stephenson uses countless times over the course of a 10-minute interview about what makes DeBoer the best at winning Game 7s, while also being one of the best head coaches of this current generation of NHL bench bosses.
One item that has made DeBoer one of the premier coaches of this generation is how his teams not only win, but win in quick fashion. In each of the first seasons that he has guided a team to the playoffs, those teams have reached the conference finals.
It’s part of the reason the Vegas Golden Knights hired DeBoer in-season in 2019-20 before the pandemic limited his regular-season mark to 15 wins in 22 games. Stephenson, who was on the Golden Knights when DeBoer arrived, said DeBoer knew how to explain his systems and what he wanted from players without it feeling forced.
“I think that kind of goes into a Game 7. Game 7s are Game 7s,” said Stephenson, who now plays for the Seattle Kraken. “You’re getting everybody’s best, and you’re focusing on yourself. But for him, he has that belief in his system and that you can trust it, it can work, and he makes guys feel confident and feel good about their game. It shows the kind of coach that he is … but he’s also a human being at the same time.”
Where DeBoer’s humanity shines through is the way his three children talk about their Uncle Steve and Aunt Lisa. In this case, Uncle Steve isn’t a blood relative but rather assistant coach Steve Spott.
Spott has been with DeBoer since 1997 when DeBoer was the head coach of the Plymouth Whalers in the OHL. They worked together when DeBoer went to the Kitchener Rangers, and the two reunited in 2015 when DeBoer took over the San Jose Sharks.
Abby DeBoer said her mother, Susan, and Steve’s wife, Lisa, would always do family dinners when they were in Kitchener together whether the team was at home or on the road. The DeBoers would eventually spend Christmases and Thanksgivings with the Spotts or other assistants who became close with their family.
“They’re my brother’s godparents and their son, Tyler, is my best friend,” said DeBoer’s oldest son, Jack. “They have a daughter who is friends with my sister. It’s almost like having another aunt and uncle and another brother and sister. We’re that close. I think if you have that, the stuff at the rink and camaraderie and those Game 7 wins, they come when you have a lot of respect for the people you work with, and your families are as close as they are.”
Jack, who played college hockey at Boston University and Niagara University, said the DeBoer family has also developed a strong relationship with assistant coach Misha Donskov and his wife, Amy. Peter DeBoer and Donskov worked together in Vegas, with DeBoer promoting Donskov to assistant coach after he had previously served as director of hockey operations. Donskov joined the Stars last season and was also with DeBoer as part of the Team Canada coaching staff at the 4 Nations Face-Off.
“It’s not just Pete,” Stars forward Jason Robertson said. “It’s the rest of the coaching staff doing their jobs. It’s the leaders in the room. It’s everything. I’d like to say the majority of his teams have been heavy on veterans, and that goes a long way with preparation. But Mish, Spotter, [Stars assistant coach Alain Nasreddine] all do a great job of preparing players in each way. It’s definitely a team effort and a team effort on the ice.”
Stars captain Jamie Benn said what has made DeBoer so successful with how he approaches Game 7s is that he takes everything into account. Benn said DeBoer has made so many notes throughout the first six games that he’s able to provide players with a complete picture of what must be done to advance to the next round.
Benn has been through two Game 7s with DeBoer. The first came in 2023 when the Stars beat the Kraken in the second round, and the second came in 2024 when they defeated the then-defending champion Golden Knights in the first round.
Though the opponents were different, Benn said the underlying theme was that DeBoer prepared his players by providing a level of detail that leaves them feeling that they’ve been set up for success.
“His track record helps,” Benn said. “In the end, he wants us to go out there, have fun and play. Just play our system the right way with details. He boosts his players up for those moments, and we’ve succeeded.”
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Jamie Benn brings Stars level on the power play
Jamie Benn tips it in from close range to tie the score on the power play for the Stars vs. the Avalanche.
Robertson said that although he wasn’t initially aware of DeBoer’s Game 7 record entering the game against the Kraken, knowing that history provided the Stars with even more confidence that they could do it again versus the Golden Knights.
As for the Golden Knights: What was it like for Stephenson and the rest of his former teammates to go from having Game 7 success with DeBoer to being on the losing end?
“It was a little bit of, we know his system and what he wants to do, but it’s such a good system that he runs that it gives Dallas success,” Stephenson said. “It gave us success and all the teams he coached success, because that’s what you should want, and that’s how you should want to play the game.”
IT’S CLEAR IN TALKING to those around him that DeBoer knows when to be a coach, when to be a human being and when to use both to make everyone around him feel at ease knowing that their season is on the line.
But is that the real reason DeBoer has won eight consecutive Game 7s? Or is it something else, like a superstition? More specifically, is the fact that DeBoer always wears a three-piece suit in Game 7s — leading to his trademark look being called a “three-Pete suit” — the reason behind his success?
“My first video coach was a guy named Jamie Pringle. He’s in Calgary now and has been there for 10, 12 years,” DeBoer told ESPN in late March. “We played Calgary on this road trip, and he texted me before the game, ‘Do me a favor. We’re fighting for a playoff spot. Don’t wear the three-piece suit!’ And I didn’t! But we beat them anyway. I’m not sure it helped.”
DeBoer admitted that subconsciously he thinks about wearing a three-piece suit before those Game 7s because it goes back to confidence, and the confidence he wants to portray when walking into the dressing room.
“The players really read off you, and it’s a composure, quiet confidence that’s even more critical when you get into those do-or-die situations,” DeBoer explained.
Broadcasts of NHL games often show coaches intensely looking at what’s going on in front of them, or being actively engaged in other ways. It creates the belief that they might not be approachable or that hockey is all they think about.
Abby DeBoer said she has had friends who were nervous at first to meet her dad because he is this “stern-looking” figure wearing a three-piece suit. But when people get to know him and realize that he’s someone who enjoys life, he’s able to connect with everyone from his children’s friends to his assistant coaches to his players.
“For him, it’s not about being the loudest person in the room or having your voice heard and everyone immediately following,” Abby said. “He’s really open to conversation. He’s really open to feedback. He’s really open to collaboration.”
Oddly enough, something DeBoer’s children say he’s not open to is talking with them about his job in any great detail. Jack and Matt joked that they might be able to get their dad to answer two questions before he moves on to a subject that doesn’t involve what he does at the rink.
That even includes Game 7s.
“I kind of wish I could maybe hear a little more from him sometimes but he’s pretty, ‘Keep hockey at the rink,’ especially with those Game 7s,” said Matt, a junior forward who plays college hockey at Holy Cross. “He’s a calm person. He doesn’t really like to talk about himself or what’s going on at the rink. When he’s home, it’s, ‘Let’s watch a movie or let’s talk about your hockey life.'”
DeBoer is quick to deflect the praise elsewhere when asked what has made him so successful in Game 7s. He credits the fact that he has had good fortune winning those Game 7s in different circumstances, or how he has had assistants who have made players feel at ease, along with the different team leaders he has had over the years.
“Through seven games, we try to present a really clear picture to our group over and over again of what’s working and what isn’t,” DeBoer said. “I’d like to think that by Game 7 of a series that our guys have a really clear picture of how we want to execute or what we want to do.”
DeBoer also says that having home-ice advantage for many of those Game 7s has played a role. Six of his eight Game 7 wins have come on home ice; another took place with the Stars as the “home team” in the Edmonton bubble.
The Stars host the Avs in Game 7 and have won two of the three games this series played at the American Airlines Center.
“I always say home ice isn’t important until a Game 7, and I really believe that,” DeBoer said. “I think in Game 7 it is an important advantage.”
After a 17-year NHL coaching career, DeBoer could use this postseason to fortify what is already a strong résumé. He has won 662 regular-season games, which ranks 17th all time, while his 91 playoff victories are eighth in NHL history.
His time in Dallas has included the Stars advancing to consecutive Western Conference finals; if they can get beyond the Avs on Saturday, they’ll remain on a path for a third straight trip — along with the chance to win the second Stanley Cup in franchise history, which would be DeBoer’s first.
As the rounds continue and the matchups tighten, there’s a chance DeBoer could find himself in another Game 7 situation after Saturday, which led to him being asked another question about his exploits.
Given all the success he has had with Game 7, why can’t his teams close out a series in five or six games?
“Oh, for sure! That’s the funny part of it,” he said. “I get all this credit for winning Game 7s, but I’ve lost a lot of series in Games 4, 5 and 6 too over the years. You’re never as smart as you think you are.”
Prior to the start of the 2025 Stanley Cup playoffs, one series stood out from the rest: Dallas Stars vs. Colorado Avalanche.
Both teams finished with more than 100 points in the regular season, appeared to be in a championship-contention window and employed Mikko Rantanen at one time during the 2024-25 campaign.
Sure enough, the two clubs have battled in their series — and six games weren’t enough to determine a victor.
Saturday night (8 p.m. ET, ABC/ESPN+) will be Game 7. It is the 199th Game 7 in Stanley Cup playoff history, and if you enjoy nail-biters, recent history suggests you are in luck: Since 2022, 11 of the 14 Game 7s have been decided by one goal, including all four in 2024.
To help get you fully prepared for the game, we’ve gathered ESPN reporters and analysts to identify the key players to watch, along with final score predictions for the pivotal clash.
Who is the one key player you’ll be watching?
Ryan S. Clark, NHL reporter: It has to be Matt Duchene. After scoring 30 goals and reaching 80 points for the second time in his career, he has only one point in the series.
His productivity was key in the regular season, and the Stars could use a strong performance from Duchene in Game 7. Remember what he did against his former team in an elimination game last postseason: The Stars won in double overtime on Duchene’s goal.
Emily Kaplan, NHL reporter: Cale Makar. It doesn’t feel right that the best defenseman in the world, who scored 30 goals this season, doesn’t have a goal this series. He holds himself to a high standard, saying “I have to be a lot better” ahead of the pivotal Game 6. Makar was, picking up three points to stave off elimination, but I still think he’ll get to another gear Saturday.
Victoria Matiash, NHL analyst: Valeri Nichushkin. The Stars have had their hands full trying to stop the second-line power forward — and ex-teammate — when he’s at his most effective. After potting a pair of goals to help propel the Avalanche to Game 7, Nichushkin is poised to add another goal (or two) when it matters most. Like many others in the league, he tends to score in bunches. After not being available for the Avs in recent playoffs, he has extra incentive.
Arda Öcal, NHL broadcaster: Nathan MacKinnon has six goals and 10 points in this series. If there’s one guy with the highest levels of compete and a “never say die” attitude, it’s MacKinnon. MacKinnon’s six goals is one shy of tying the franchise record for most goals in a playoff series (with Rantanen among those that are currently tied for that record).
Kristen Shilton, NHL reporter: This is the moment for Mikko Rantanen. Dallas went all-in when it acquired Rantanen, whom the Stars signed for the long haul so he could be a difference-maker at a time like this.
Rantanen was excellent in helping Dallas bounce back in Game 5, finishing with a goal and two assists. He had four points in the Stars’ Game 6 defeat. That’s the sort of performance the Stars should expect him to replicate in Game 7. Rantanen won a Stanley Cup with the Avs; he knows what it takes to finish a series and advance deep into the playoffs. That experience will be invaluable as well for Rantanen as he leads by example for the Stars.
Greg Wyshynski, NHL reporter: He’s not on the ice, but behind the bench. Dallas coach Peter DeBoer can set an NHL record for career Game 7 wins if the Stars defeat the Avalanche. He’s 8-0 in his career, tied with several players and coach Darryl Sutter for the most career Game 7 wins. DeBoer and former Dallas forward Brad Richards are the only two individuals in NHL history to win their first eight Game 7s.
On one hand, it’s probably not great that so many of DeBoer’s teams have been in “win or go home” series scenarios. On the other hand, it has been the opponents who have gone home every time.
The final score will be _____.
Clark: 4-3 Stars. Granted, anything can happen in a Game 7, especially when a team as powerful as the Avs is involved. The Stars get the nod because they not only have won Game 7s in consecutive postseasons, but their coach Peter DeBoer is 8-0 in these do-or-die games. Again, it’s the Avs and the Stars — which means any number of possibilities could be on the table — but Dallas gets the slight edge.
Kaplan: 4-3 Avalanche. It will be high-octane. The pace in this series has been incredible, but it has often been the Avalanche setting the tone — and I expect them to be flying again. What the Stars have done without two of their biggest stars, Miro Heiskanen and Jason Robertson, shows their depth. But the Avs have too much star power not to get it done.
Matiash: 3-1 Avalanche. Nathan MacKinnon, at his best, is tough to contain when everything is on the line. Even if the Stars stifle the Avs’ top unit, that secondary forward front, including Nichushkin, Brock Nelson, and Gabriel Landeskog, provides too formidable a follow-up punch. Plus, Mackenzie Blackwood, who has strung together few porous starts all season, appears set to provide another stellar showing, similar to the shutout he pitched in Game 4.
Öcal: 3-1 Stars. Jake Oettinger makes 43 saves. Roope Hintz opens the scoring, the Avs tie it up thanks to Cale Makar on the power play. Early in the third, it’s who else but Mikko Rantanen scoring on a breakaway, then Thomas Harley adds an empty-netter and Dallas moves on to Round 2.
Shilton: 3-2 Stars. It never hurts to have home-ice advantage in a Game 7, especially when you’ve played as well in your own building as Dallas did all season. The Stars have been the better team — by a slim margin — in the series, and though it should be a close contest, Dallas has the juice to send Colorado packing.
Peter DeBoer’s perfect coaching record in Game 7s aside, the Stars are practically seasoned vets when it comes to playing in them, while the Avalanche haven’t had the same success closing teams out since their Cup win three years ago. It’ll be a tight battle.
Wyshynski: Stars 4-2. I picked them before the series in seven games and I’ll stick with that. That was a one-goal Game 6 until the empty-netters, despite Roope Hintz and Mikko Rantanen being the entirety of the Dallas offense. The Stars will need something out of Matt Duchene, Tyler Seguin and Mason Marchment in Game 7. The encouraging thing is that they got something out of all three of them in the Stars’ Game 5 rout, so maybe they just need some home cooking.
Factor in Jake Oettinger‘s 1.54 goals-against average and .956 save percentage in three Game 7 appearances (2-1 record), and I like Dallas to advance.
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