Sending emails and opening bills: Inside Nick Saban’s ‘new reality’
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Chris Low, ESPN Senior Writer
TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — The stress level of former Alabama football coach Nick Saban is down exponentially these days, though there are some harrowing moments.
Like when his 3-year-old grandson, James, joins him on the golf course.
“The challenge is keeping him out of the sand traps,” Saban said. “He likes to play in the sand. That’s about the most stress I’ve had.”
The legendary coach’s meticulous attention to detail and unmatched work ethic during his 17 seasons in Tuscaloosa produced six national championships (after he won one at LSU), 123 NFL draft picks — including 44 first-rounders — and a new standard in college football.
But it left little time for anything else. Remember, Saban once reportedly complained about the national title game costing him a week of recruiting time.
So how has Saban adapted to his new life? It’s something his closest confidants, family members and Saban himself are still coming to grips with.
“When you’re in a rat race like he’s been, you could never really step away and appreciate what you’ve accomplished,” said Alabama head athletic trainer Jeff Allen, the only football staff member Saban brought to the Tide who was there for his entire tenure.
“You just never could because in this business as soon as you take a breath, you’re getting beat. He wasn’t going to take a breath.”
Not only is Saban now taking a breath, he’s seeing the world outside of football. He’s experiencing things he never had time for in the past. He’s actually relaxing, a word that previously wasn’t really part of his vocabulary.
“The biggest change for me as a person is that I lived my whole life for the last 50 years being in a hurry,” Saban told ESPN. “It was, ‘Hurry up to go here. Hurry up to go there. Don’t be late for this meeting. You’ve got another meeting in an hour. What are you going to say to the staff? What are you going to say to the team?’
“I mean, it was just deadline after deadline after deadline. Even when I was driving to the lake to go on vacation, I’d be in a hurry, and for what? But that’s just how you were built.”
‘The Ten Commandments of Retirement’
THERE WAS NEVER any debate about who was in charge of Alabama’s football program, but Saban has often joked that his wife of 52 years, Terry, was the family member most proficient at giving orders.
The day after he retired in January, Saban said he had a note from Ms. Terry, as he refers to her, sitting on his chair. It spelled out “The Ten Commandments of Retirement.”
Terry wouldn’t share all of them, but near the top was the decree that Saban wait for her to sit down at the dinner table and to slow down when eating. She also told him it was polite to leave a little something on his plate when eating at a restaurant.
“So at our first dinner at home, he brought his plate to me with half a pickle on it and said, ‘To be polite!'” Terry said.
Another commandment calls for Saban to alter his behavior when they are settling in on the couch. For years, when Terry would get a blanket for herself, she always picked one up for Saban.
“Now, I’d appreciate the same courtesy,” she wrote.
Terry has enrolled Saban into her own version of a “Tech 101” class.
“He’s actually texting and reading his own emails and sent his first-ever email,” Terry said. “He even took his first trip to the pharmacy to pick up his first prescription. He’s actually quite proud of himself.”
To be clear, Saban has hardly become a homebody. He doesn’t hang out watching television, though he admits to being a big fan of “Game of Thrones.”
“I can’t stand sitting around now any more than I could stand it when I was coaching,” Saban said. “I want to stay busy. I think everybody looks at me like, ‘This guy’s a ball coach and that’s all he does.’ I’ve got businesses, I do speaking stuff. I’ve got my TV job now with ESPN. I like to play golf. I’ve got tons of stuff to do. So I’m not retiring to quit working.”
Saban is part-owner of multiple car dealerships, including a Ferrari dealership in Nashville and a Mercedes-Benz dealership in Birmingham. He has a stake in a boutique hotel, The Alamite, in downtown Tuscaloosa.
“What’s so exciting for all of us, especially him, is that he kind of has a blank slate now that he can play around with,” said Saban’s daughter Kristen, who lives in Birmingham. “It’s really nice to see him not have this big stressful thing hanging over him. He’s accomplished so much that I don’t think he feels like he’s leaving anything behind. He’s leaving with no regrets and stepping away with a lot of gratitude and a lot of relief at the same time.
“He’s in a relaxed state of mind that I haven’t really seen him in, and it kind of puts everybody else at peace too.”
Now that Saban is home more, he has been doing the kind of mundane household tasks most don’t even think about but that weren’t part of his routine. Imagine being the delivery driver who finds himself face to face with college football’s greatest coach.
“It’s funny to see people’s reaction when he opens the door because for 17 years he has never been there to answer it,” said Terry, who has had as much fun as anybody reveling in the changes in her husband’s lifestyle.
She joked that Saban has now learned where all the light switches are in the house and has taken to getting the mail. He even opens up some of the bills now.
“Sometimes ignorance is bliss,” Terry said.
Kristen is confident her dad will continue to evolve and adapt in retirement, much as he did when he was coaching. But don’t expect him to show up on social media.
“No chance,” Kristen said, laughing. “People have said they want him on it, and I’ve said it’s just not going to happen. He just learned to text and email. How’s he going to tweet something?”
Kristen promises to post a few pictures of the retirement version of her dad from time to time on her social media accounts.
“But could you imagine him doing an Instagram selfie or something somewhere on the golf course?” she said. “We can hope, but it’s not going to happen.”
And don’t expect Saban to make many grocery store runs, as Kristen and Terry learned their lesson a few years ago when the family was at their old home in Boca Grande, Florida. They sent Saban to the store to restock the fridge with ketchup, mustard and other condiments, and to fill the car with gas. But the perfectionist in Saban quickly became a problem.
“He was like, ‘Yeah, yeah, I can do it,’ and he’s not even in the store for five minutes when he calls and says, ‘There’s a hundred bottles of ketchup and mustard on the shelf. Which kind am I supposed to get?'” Kristen recounted.
Saban was persistent: “Is there a specific brand or size?”
Kristen, who laughs as hard now as she did when the grocery store excursion occurred, said the general response from her and her mom was the same.
“God forbid he grabs the wrong bottle,” she said. “We were like, ‘OK, just grab whatever.'”
A windowless office and lunchtime golf
THE SABANS HAVE a new home in Jupiter Island, Florida, not far from where Tiger Woods lives. They’ve been there for most of March, and though they will spend plenty of time there in the offseason, they will remain based in Tuscaloosa. Saban wants to be close enough where he can be a resource for the university and will also have more time to join Terry in her philanthropic work.
“I want to bring the least amount of attention to me being around here as possible,” Saban said. “So I want to be supportive. I want to be helpful, but I don’t want to be looking over anybody’s shoulder.”
In other words, don’t expect him to be walking around the hallways at the football complex and poking his head in meetings. He’s talked multiple times with new coach Kalen DeBoer and even had a conversation with new defensive coordinator Kane Wommack, but Saban will steer clear of the day-to-day football operation.
He will keep an office on campus, but not in the Mal M. Moore Athletic Facility where it had been for the past 17 years. His new office is located above the south end zone of Bryant-Denny Stadium, the opposite side from the Walk of Champions and Saban’s statue, so he won’t have to walk past the 9-foot bronze likeness of himself every morning. His office is modest in size with no windows, and his desk is the same one he had at the football complex.
“It’s just a hell of a lot cleaner,” Saban said.
When he’s heading to the office, Saban leaves the house about the same time he always did, just before 7 a.m. Depending on what he has going on, he may head home around 4 p.m., or he may leave at lunchtime and go hit golf balls. He’s not naïve and knows there will be some football withdrawal as he settles into retirement life.
When Saban was nearing a decision about whether to retire, he spoke with Pro Football Hall of Fame coach Bill Parcells, who has a house in the same area of Jupiter Island. Parcells is in the thoroughbred racing business and cautioned Saban not to fall into the same trap as some of the jockeys he’s seen who keep riding into and beyond their 50s because it’s in their blood and they just can’t give it up.
“It’s a hazardous occupation, and I’m talking about screws just holding those guys’ chests together, and they’re still taking every mount they can get. There’s no way they’re ever going to quit,” Saban said, relaying his conversation with Parcells. “Coaches are like that, too, because as a coach, you think you’ve got to keep coaching, you’ve got to keep teaching, that you can’t do without it.
“But Parcells’ analogy was a good one for me, because you step back and realize that you can.”
Mark Dantonio, who was Saban’s defensive backs coach at Michigan State in the 1990s and was later the Spartans’ head coach for 13 seasons, remembers getting a call from his old boss about two or three days after Dantonio retired in 2019.
“He called just checking on how I was doing, and then two days after that call, he called me back again to check on me,” recalled Dantonio, who is part of the College Football Hall of Fame class of 2024. “When you retire in this business, you’re jumping off a fast car. There’s no landing place. You go from working 365 days, 24 hours a day, to being retired. There’s going to be other things that replace that, but nothing like you’re used to. So there’s quite an adjustment.”
Football will always be a part of Saban’s DNA, whether he’s lending his voice in an attempt to help ease the current chaos in the sport, as he did earlier this month when appearing before a congressional committee in Washington, D.C., or breaking down a matchup on ESPN’s “College GameDay,” which he will be a part of this season. Saban has been working overtime watching tape and researching players — many of whom he coached, coached against or recruited — in preparation for ESPN’s NFL draft coverage.
His desk is surrounded by a stack of boxes filled with notes going back more than 20 years. He’s in the process of consolidating his notes from some of the talks he had with coaches and players.
“It’s taken forever because they’re not in order,” Saban said. “I was looking at a talk today, for instance, when I was with the Dolphins before we played the Oakland Raiders. I want to be able to remember what I said to the players, the points I was trying to make, some of the things you want to get across when you’re talking to some of these groups about leadership.”
Joe Pendry was one of Saban’s most trusted confidants in football, and they go all the way back to their West Virginia roots. Pendry, who was Saban’s first offensive line coach at Alabama, offered his longtime pal a very simple piece of advice.
“‘Turn that phone off and leave it off,'” Pendry said he told Saban. “It’s never easy when you’ve done it as long and as well as Nick has and then walk away and not undergo a little bit of a debriefing process. He’ll get there. It just might take him some time, especially on those dates like preseason camp starting and the season starting. As much as anything, he’s going to miss practice because nobody loved being out there coaching and teaching those players more than Nick did.”
Enjoying a ‘new reality’
Saban promised Terry he would walk away from football while their quality of life would still allow them to do things they’ve wanted to but couldn’t because of his schedule. That may mean more trips to their home in Lake Burton, Georgia, where they have a group of friends who don’t bombard him with football talk. Saban has celebrated his birthday (he turns 73 this year) the past few years with those friends. And since his birthday falls on Halloween, usually during an open date on Alabama’s schedule, they don’t gather to watch football, but occasionally dress up in costumes.
Last October, Saban dressed up as explorer John Smith from “Pocahontas.” Other costumes included Thurston Howell III and Lovey from the old television show “Gilligan’s Island.”
“We all are enjoying this new reality of more time, more choices and less stress,” Terry said.
And more time to play golf.
Last month Saban played at a celebrity tournament in Florida with rappers 50 Cent and Travis Scott. When Kristen caught wind of that, she couldn’t resist needling her dad.
“I said, ‘Do you understand who you’re playing golf with right now?'” she asked. “He goes, ‘Yeah, they’re rappers.’ I told him they’re not just rappers, that 50 Cent was the biggest rapper of my generation and Travis Scott is one of the biggest of the current generation. I was like, ‘You have no idea the people you’re in the presence of,’ and he really didn’t.
“He could meet the Dalai Lama and not realize who it was.”
On a typical workday, Saban ate lunch at his desk, the same salad, with turkey slices and cherry tomatoes, day after day. His new office on campus is just steps away from Rama Jama’s, an iconic area restaurant that is a virtual football museum filled with helmets, jerseys and other memorabilia. On the day Saban moved into his new digs, Allen pointed to Rama Jama’s and said, “Coach, now you can walk across the street and get you a hamburger for lunch.”
Saban looked quizzically at the restaurant and said, “Yeah, what is that place? Has it been there for a long time?”
Allen, who had a front-row seat for Saban’s singular focus for 17 seasons, could only laugh.
“Yeah, Coach, for decades,” he responded.
Saban nodded and said that he might try it sometime.
“I just want to be there when he walks in and orders a hamburger,” Allen said with a laugh.
So does Kristen.
“We all do,” she said. “Seeing him sitting there and eating a hamburger in the middle of the day might be the surest sign yet that he’s really retired, and he deserves every bit of it.”
Saban smiled when asked how long it took for a sense of relief to set in after telling his players he was retiring.
“Really as soon as I did it,” he said. “Now, I had to adapt. People would call me and ask me questions. Players would call and ask what they should do, and I would commiserate on it and tell Terry that so-and-so is calling about this or that or whatever.”
Terry’s response was always the same: “It’s not your problem anymore.”
“I had to get used to that part of it,” Saban said.
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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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