‘Failure definitely drives me more than anything else’: Inside Corey Seager’s perpetual pursuit of the perfect swing
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Jeff Passan, ESPN
THE BASEBALL SWING is a puzzle, an ever-changing riddle. Even for the best hitters in the world, the fragility of the swing is palpable. Every minuscule detail matters. Batters are not machines, built to replicate the same action countless times before they are replaced. They are human beings aiming to be their most machine-like and grappling with the defect of the endeavor.
Perhaps the best representation of this duality belongs to Corey Seager, the shortstop for the reigning World Series champion Texas Rangers. Seager obsesses over his swing. “I love the process,” he says. “You have to enjoy it to be able to do this, right?” Now in his 10th major league season, Seager has grown into one of the game’s finest hitters as much because of the time he spends fine-tuning his swing as the inherent ability packed into his 6-foot-4, 215-pound frame.
Seager’s left-handed swing is gorgeous, rhythmic, elegant even. It is an aesthetic marvel, its art rooted in its science. Seager is a baseball engineer, building complex processes on the fly. Every movement has meaning and the end product — the swing — is a one-man symphony.
And yet Seager lives with perpetual anxiety, worrying that for all of the time and effort and energy he devotes to his swing, it could desert him at the most inopportune moment. For all of the offense his swing produces, it exists equally as a defense mechanism. Seager’s infatuation is also his torment.
“The fear of failure,” he says. “Failure definitely drives me more than anything else.”
So the man widely regarded as the most clutch hitter of his generation focuses on the most microscopic of details. Little invigorates Seager more than the daily rebuild of his swing. This is the process in action.
“It takes an aggressive humility to say, ‘I’ve been a multiple-time World Series MVP, Rookie of the Year and every day I’m going to start with a blank state,'” Rangers bench coach Donnie Ecker says. “‘How do I put this thing together to be ready at 7 o’clock?’ What I appreciate about Corey is there’s no guessing. He’s not willing to do that.”
Seager understands that his cues are ever-evolving, that swings do not exist in vacuums. Aging can degrade them and injuries can contaminate them, and that’s all before trying to calibrate them for a pitcher marrying 98 on the corner with a bastard back-foot slider and a tumbling splitter just to make hitting even more the fool’s errand. The inherent defensiveness of the batter — every hitter, quite literally, is starting on the back foot — forces Seager to vise-grip everything he can control.
On the cusp of 30 years old, Seager is figuring out who he is and what he can be. And for all the help he receives, all the support offered, hitting is ultimately a solo endeavor. It’s just him and himself, raging against the fear and seeking the peace of the perfect swing and things beyond.
“There is no worse feeling than being in a bad spot in a major league batter’s box,” Seager says. “Knowing you’re in a bad spot and not being able to compete. You’re just by yourself. It’s an empty, bad place to be. You have no chance. These guys are way too good. And nobody’s coming to save you.”
BEFORE EVERY AT-BAT, Seager finds a mirror. At Globe Life Field, he heads for the one next to the batting cage or in the weight room. At the other 29 stadiums around Major League Baseball, Seager knows exactly where he can locate one, because it’s every bit as important to him as the bat he’s going to use at the plate.
When Seager stares into the looking glass, he sees angles. It’s less about mathematics than about comparing the mental snapshot of his most idealized batting stance to how closely he is reproducing it in that particular moment. This varies by the day, even the at-bat. For Seager to be who he aspires to be — the best version of himself, which consequently would be the best hitter on the planet — he must constantly tweak and contort his limbs into the proper angles to put himself in an ideal position to punish a baseball.
The mirror is Seager’s muse. He stares at himself with clarity, both literal — he’s got 20/12.5 vision — and figurative, the latter born of thousands of hours studying the angles and knowing himself better than any opponent hunting for a weakness ever could.
“Even with good vision, if you’re in a bad spot you’re not going to be able to dictate your at-bat how I would prefer to,” Seager says. “So I’ve learned that it always comes back to how I move.”
Seager’s main mirror sits in the hallway at Globe Life. A piece of white tape adorns its top frame. Written on the tape is a message: “I’m here to help you look good & move good. Please don’t break me.” Rangers hitters retreat from the dugout to partake of it, none with quite the reverence of Seager.
“The mirror,” he says, “does not lie.”
This kind of single-minded focus has helped him ascend to the highest rung of one of the game’s most successful families. His oldest brother, Kyle, was an All-Star and Gold Glove-winning third baseman with Seattle. The middle sibling, Justin, topped out at Double-A in the Mariners organization. Kyle was in the midst of his first major league season when the Dodgers chose Seager out of high school in North Carolina with the 18th pick of the 2012 draft. Promoted to Double-A two years later after wrecking the lower minor leagues, Seager linked up with then-Dodgers minor league hitting coach Shawn Wooten, a fortuitous pairing that refined his abundant raw skills.
In Wooten, a six-year big leaguer, Seager found a kindred spirit. Seager’s obsessiveness is not limited to his swing. Everything in his orbit has a specific place and if something is not where it belongs it eats at him.
“It’s helped me in my profession to be OCD” — Seager uses the term colloquially, not clinically — “and have things lined up exactly how I need them to be,” he says. “The way he could break it down — put me in different segments of the swing, different points, different parts — is what really clicked with me. Give me how it’s going to go, what you need at that point and let me do it and figure it out. And that’s where it really clicked for us.”
Seager’s early work with Wooten consumed him, even at the oddest times. In the minor leagues, Seager lived with current Oakland A’s right-hander Ross Stripling and Stripling’s future wife, Shelby. Once, when Seager and Shelby were eating breakfast, he stood up from the table, handed her his phone and asked her to take video of him pantomiming a swing. The boundaries of swing enlightenment are anchored to neither place nor time. When Seager takes video of himself, Stripling says, “it looks like he’s doing nothing, but to him he’s doing something so important.”
Prior to games, Seager still meanders through the clubhouse with a bat in one hand and a phone connected to a tripod in the other — a digital complement to his analog mirror — scrutinizing clips of his swing and comparing them to others in a library that spans his minor league days to the present. Optimizing a swing is a constant fire drill and any tool that proves effective finds its place in Seager’s routine.
Seager and Wooten talk every day, speaking a language foreign to even other big leaguers. The nomenclature matters because Seager uses it to discuss with Wooten where his body parts belong at particular points in the swing. Achieving angles is an exercise in subtlety. When Seager arrives in the box and stares out to the endless world of outcomes on the field in front of him, he takes his mirror session and tries to duplicate it. He digs his legs into a wide base. He cantilevers his right arm. His first move starts before the pitcher releases the ball.
“Go watch a game and, if you can, watch before he gets his hands up,” Wooten says. “He just pushes his hips back and turns his front foot in. It’s by design to get on the plane of the pitch.”
Getting on plane — lowering the barrel of the bat to the same level as the incoming ball — is perhaps the most important element of the swing to Wooten. To achieve that, Seager’s back elbow drops into the slot, tucked toward his body. His back knee stays underneath his body to prevent him from lunging. His posture remains upright to allow him to hit high, inside fastballs.
Even though Seager cues himself to swing down — a long-taught tenet that has fallen out of favor in the era of hitters chasing higher launch angles — he’s not actually doing so; it’s simply terminology that Wooten found allows him to stay on plane. Seager’s head barely moves as his hips rotate and the potential energy built through his swing transfers into kinetic energy when bat meets ball.
“If there’s one thing off,” Wooten says, “it’s a big deal.”
All of it is in service of avoiding that bad spot in the box, when the walls of a 40,000-seat stadium seem as if they’re caving in, when the pitcher feels far closer than 60 feet, 6 inches away. Every session in the mirror, every moment spent crafting a routine, goes back to that.
“What makes him an outlier that puts him in the 1% of the 1% is there’s a true obsessive nature about his pursuit of mastery,” Ecker says. “Nothing about that is going to be relatable. When you’re talking about the Kobe Bryants and Tom Bradys and Corey Seagers, everything they do is on the far end of the spectrum.”
As much as Seager studies scouting reports and knows every pitcher’s arsenal, he sees that knowledge as secondary to his swing. The ultimate in control is the capacity to eliminate variables, and rather than do so by guessing what pitch is coming next Seager cuts out one side of the equation altogether, a rare approach because so few have the skill to pull it off.
“That whole question of would you rather know what’s coming or have the perfect swing,” he says, “I’m picking the perfect swing every single time.”
DIFFERENT INCARNATIONS OF Seager have manifested through the years. There was the skinny, pliable kid who arrived in the major leagues at 21 and in 2016 won Rookie of the Year. The maturing masher who when he was healthy did incredible things — his opposite-field World Series home run off Justin Verlander in 2017, punctuated by an unexpected scream of delight, remains a defining highlight of his career — but struggled to stay on the field. The in-his-prime star in 2020 who won his first World Series MVP after retooling his swing. The beneficiary of a 10-year, $325 million free agent deal from the Rangers, who were coming off a 66-96 season in 2021. And the latest build, Seager 5.0, owner of a body that doesn’t move like it once did and needed Wooten’s whispering following a disappointing first year in Texas.
By 2023, because Seager had added weight and strength over time, warping his body into angles he previously achieved was no longer an option. So going into the season, he kept what he did well — his back leg — and overhauled the rest. Ecker learned the language and served as boots on the ground to translate, forging a partnership with Wooten, now an independent hitting coach, that thrived on collaboration and brought out the best in Seager.
“He has the ability to test and retest,” Ecker says. “That second iteration is the most important part. He’s going to stress test it and be able to put it back together.”
For almost all of 2023, Seager operated as if he’d solved the puzzle. After missing six weeks in April and May with a hamstring injury, he finished the year with career highs in batting average (.327), slugging percentage (.623), home runs (33) and RBIs (96), despite playing just 119 games. If not for Shohei Ohtani, Seager would have won the AL MVP award.
And then Seager came the closest he ever has to a perfect swing, at the perfect time: Game 1 of the 2023 World Series, when he stepped to the plate in the ninth inning, one runner on, down two runs, against Arizona Diamondbacks closer Paul Sewald.
Years ago, Sewald learned by accident that his low arm slot could deliver almost-impossible-to-hit high fastballs. The last home run he had issued on a fastball at the top of the strike zone came Sept. 23, 2021. Surely aware that Seager has led MLB in first-pitch-swing percentage for three straight years but not wanting to fall behind in the count, Sewald threw a first-pitch fastball. High in the zone, on the inner quarter of the plate, the well-executed offering was designed to induce a swing-and-miss. Over the previous two years, at-bats that ended on Sewald fastballs as high off the ground as this one — 3.32 feet — had produced six hits, all singles, and a .133 batting average.
Seager hammered the 93.2-mph fastball 418 feet into the right-field stands, stared into the Rangers’ dugout and emitted a primal scream.
“I was watching the World Series,” his former Dodgers teammate and close friend Justin Turner says, “and it was like, ‘Oh my god, he Verlander-ed him.'”
Seager says he does not remember anything about the home run, and as unbelievable as that sounds — an iconic moment for the world was fleeting for the person who made it — his friends and teammates believe him. They see what he turns into in October. The tunnel vision. The attention to detail on every play. If in-season Seager is focused, postseason Seager never lapses — not at the plate, not in the field, not on the bases.
“I don’t remember a lot of the playoffs,” he says. “You know it means more, so you are more focused. You’re trying to make it the same game, but truly the atmosphere, everything else — I don’t remember certain plays, I don’t remember certain sequences of the game. You have bits and pieces that you remember. And especially on homers, I have flashbacks of certain aspects of it, but there’s a lot of ’em I don’t even remember what happened. It’s kind of crazy. It sucks. I wish I remembered.”
Seager’s propensity to meet any moment, any situation, any pitcher is earning him hallowed company. Last October, he hit .318/.451/.682 with six home runs, including three against the Diamondbacks en route to his second World Series MVP. He joined Sandy Koufax, Bob Gibson and Reggie Jackson as the only two-time winners. Plenty of people in baseball see him as the modern-day version of Derek Jeter — and Seager is only one postseason home run away from tying the New York Yankees captain despite playing in half as many playoff games. Since 2020, among the 82 players with at least 15 postseason games, Seager has the most home runs (16) and RBIs (38, tied with Houston’s Yordan Alvarez) and the second-most runs and hits.
“This is where I want to be,” Seager says. “You change, you adapt, you learn. But I don’t know if you ever get enough, especially in the postseason.”
For Seager, the names, the comparisons, the accolades — they land with all the impact of a snowflake hitting the pavement. He considers the idea of being clutch and believes there’s something to it, but it’s nothing innate, he thinks, not something he was lucky enough to have inherited. It’s a positive consequence of his process, the routine of which allows him to take advantage at any time — including, yes, those most opportune.
“He doesn’t give a f— who’s on the mound,” Stripling says. “He doesn’t care if it’s Jacob deGrom or the last starter in the big leagues. It is see ball, hit ball. He’s just awful to face.”
When Seager was filming videos at Stripling’s breakfast table, Turner was remaking his own career with the Dodgers, and the two later bonded over their focus on routine. Now, in many ways, the student has exceeded the mentor. They’re peers, exceptional hitters both, and they share that knack for October that Turner believes goes beyond their ability to swing the bat with great conviction in moments that crumble lesser players.
“Clutch is misconceived as the three-run homer,” says Turner, 39, now the Toronto Blue Jays’ designated hitter. “It’s hard because only one guy maybe even gets that opportunity in a game to have that clutch moment. Where can you identify clutch in a game throughout plate appearances when that moment is not present. An aspect of clutch is being prepared and being confident in the work you’ve done to put you in a position of confidence when you’re in those moments. Guys probably get out of character in the big moments if they’re not as prepared or as confident and they’re trying to do too much in those areas.
“He’s prepared. There’s a lot of confident guys, right? But he believes in his work. He believes in everything he does going up to the game to give him that mental freedom where no situation is too big for him. A lot of this is being able to find freedom in your game — that you’re not thinking about a mechanic, a situation. There are no what-ifs. You can get ready on time and let it rip. When you have that freedom, you can do anything.”
ON THE NIGHT he hit the home run off Sewald, Seager returned home and watched a replay. He has not pressed play on the video again since. The yell does not embarrass him, exactly, but anything that generates attention goes against his entrenched approach. Seager is guarded: happy to sing the praises of teammates, loath to talk about himself. Little by little, as with his swing, he’s working on that, too.
“I don’t want to be in the spotlight. I don’t want to be the person who’s talked about. And … it’s where I work,” Seager says. “It took a long time to get used to. I used to be super uncomfortable, especially away from the field when people notice you. It was the most uncomfortable thing that could ever happen. I stopped leaving [the house]. I stopped going out. I stopped going to dinner. I just couldn’t handle it. And then finally my wife kind of was like, ‘We have to go out. We’re going to go out. It’s going to be fine. You’re going to figure it out.'”
He is slowly learning, still grappling with the demands of excellence and the trappings of fame. As obsessed as Seager is with his swing — about once a year he’ll fling his bat with anger into the net of a batting cage when he can’t properly set his angles in his mirror — he’s beginning to recognize what chasing impossibility all this time can unlock in him. It’s the foundation for everything else — particularly growth in what he sees beyond his reflection. There is peace independent of the perfect swing, contentment amid the fear, even if not in quite yet the same quantities.
“As much as I hate the mental grind, I love going in there and fixing the puzzle,” Seager says. “I think that’s what draws me back.”
There’s a growing appreciation in Seager for things beyond swings, something that took years to blossom. On the day of Seager’s debut, Chase Utley, the veteran second baseman, pulled Seager aside and told him to treasure the game and what it has to offer. For Utley, that meant five minutes before he stepped onto the field every day to stretch, he would walk into the dugout, sit on the bench and take in the majesty of it all. Seager, too green to understand the purpose of Utley’s routine, didn’t bother.
“I never really thought about it for four years on why he did it,” Seager says. “And then during COVID, actually weirdly enough, when nobody’s around, is kind of when I started. I went on out on the line, kind of took my time of just being there and not getting rid of the nerves, but being in the emotion, being in everything. And then it just kind of goes away.”
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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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