Inside Spencer Rattler’s tumultuous journey to the NFL draft
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Hallie Grossman, ESPN Staff Writer
SPENCER RATTLER IS not done yet. He’s closing in on an hour for this afternoon’s throwing session, but he’s just sniffed out a challenge. The road to the NFL draft is a slog — the self-seriousness of the combine, the forensic analysis of testing numbers, the sheer quantity of questions asked and answered, then asked and answered again. (“The Patriots f—ing grilled me,” he says in between passing drills.) But for this one moment in late March, one month before some team in the NFL calls his name early in the draft — or not; he’s one of the draft’s most intriguing riddles — Rattler’s just a kid with a ball and the chance to one-up his buddy. He tells Mike Giovando, his longtime personal coach and the man at the helm of today’s training, he’s not ready to call it quits right now.
“I think my arm’s got one more,” he yells out.
He and Jalen Daniels, who spent time at South Carolina and is one of his training partners for the day, have been heaving long balls down the sideline, trying — and so far failing — to overthrow the speedy wide receiver Giovando has enlisted for today’s prep work. “He’s like Flash Gordon!” Giovando raves.
Daniels has just given it his best, but the receiver screams out a taunt from far downfield: “I had to slow down to catch it!”
Rattler, as he often does, has thoughts: “Watch this,” he says, ribbing Daniels. “Let me show you how to throw it to a fast guy.”
On cue, Shawn Charles, said fast guy, streaks down the right sideline. He’s a blur, like when the road, from a distance, goes wavy on a hot day. Rattler plants his right foot square on the 20-yard line, dances for a few steps, then launches one last moon shot.
The throw is hardly out of his hands before Giovando hollers his approval. “That’s it, right there!” The rest of the group — Daniels; an old teammate of Rattler’s from his high school days in Phoenix; and a hotshot quarterback in the Phoenix prep scene — lets out a collective gasp. This particular moon shot is easily 65 yards (70? 75? It all seems plausible) and Charles catches it over his shoulder, in the nick of time.
“He had to accelerate,” Giovando says, laughing, giddy from Rattler’s arm strength. The preposterousness of it. “He had to accelerate to it!”
Rattler is 23 years old, and it feels like he’s been a part of the public discourse for just as long. In that time, he’s been: the prodigy; the punk; the Heisman favorite; the flameout; the presumptive No. 1 NFL draft pick; the draft’s dead-man-walking; the comeback hero. But it’s this, right here — sublime, tantalizing arm talent — that keeps people coming back for more. It is tough to quit Spencer Rattler, even when it’s not quite clear who Spencer Rattler is. Or who he’ll be next.
IN THE SHADOW of some rolling Arizona mountains, Rattler ponders the climb before him.
He’s worked out with teams (Falcons, Broncos) and interviewed with teams (Seahawks, Patriots) and trotted out his best sales pitch for why all these prospective employers ought to hire him. But here, miles away on a high school football field in Scottsdale, it’s Denver that gnaws at him. He’s tossing a football to himself, waiting for the day’s throwing session to get in full swing, daydreaming aloud.
“They’d be smart to take me over Nix,” he says to his coach. Bo Nix, he means, the quarterback from Oregon. If Caleb Williams, Jayden Daniels and Drake Maye are this draft’s holy triumvirate of passers, with J.J. McCarthy right on their heels, Nix and Michael Penix Jr. are the quarterbacks most often coupled with Rattler. The next-best tier. The could-be-a-starter-one-day tier.
“They’re not getting you in the third,” Giovando says.
The Broncos, who are in the quarterback market this draft, have the 12th overall pick but none in the second round, so they’re all dabbling in a bit of NFL draft game theory at the moment.
“Hope not,” Rattler says.
Three years ago, a conversation like this would’ve been unfathomable. The notion of Spencer Rattler trying to separate himself from the pack? At odds with logic. He was the pack. Lincoln Riley had assembled a revolving door of Heisman quarterbacks at Oklahoma — Baker Mayfield (winner), Kyler Murray (winner), Jalen Hurts (finalist). Rattler was the next man up, except he’d be homegrown in Norman, not a transfer finishing out his college football string there, like his three predecessors. In the early days of Rattler’s recruitment, when Giovando first got on the phone with Riley, he told the Oklahoma coach at the time: “This guy is going to be like those guys.”
“This kid’s special,” Riley concurred. “I see it.”
He was both technician and showman, practically from the moment his father, Mike, realized his 2-year-old could skillfully throw and catch a Nerf football. “I would just look and go, ‘Wow, that’s not normal,'” he says. “And so then I knew, ‘OK, we got something going on here.'”
Rattler, the technician, perfected his back shoulder throw as an eighth-grader, according to his high school coach, Dana Zupke, which is hard enough to do as an NFL quarterback, let alone a middle-schooler still clumsy in a growing body. Rattler the showman could park himself at the 50-yard line, and sitting on the field cross-legged, throw the ball 60 yards and straight through the goalposts.
The technician: In ninth grade, he’d go to his high school field to throw alongside NFL hopefuls prepping for the combine; a nearby training facility would often have their college kids use Pinnacle High’s field. One time a college coach came over to marvel to Zupke: “Well, the best quarterback out here is your freshman.”
The showman: A few years later, he stood at the top of Tempe Butte — a literal mountain — on Arizona State’s campus, then fired footballs toward a trash can some 1,500 feet away and below, just because he thought he could. He nailed it on his eighth try.
Those who witnessed his feats say he’d preface them with a verbal wink. Watch this.
And we have. We were glued to the Spencer Rattler Experience, first for the come-up, and then when everything suddenly cratered. The only thing the masses love more than a conquering hero is to watch that hero’s downfall.
FOR A SPELL, Rattler’s story unfolded exactly as designed.
By the time he played his redshirt freshman season at Oklahoma — a COVID-shortened one in 2020 — he earned a 92.6 grade from Pro Football Focus. Only Mac Jones, Zach Wilson and Justin Fields, all top 15 quarterbacks in the 2021 draft, bested him, and the talk (and betting odds) turned loftier, inevitable. Rattler was at once the face of college football and the sport’s most formidable marketing power. The Heisman favorite. The presumptive No. 1 draft pick.
Then, in less than one year, he was not.
He was decidedly tolerable to start the 2021 season — a decent haul for touchdowns (10), probably a few too many turnovers (five interceptions) — but the offense looked disjointed and the team was winning tight games that didn’t need to be tight at all. Rattler wasn’t lighting the world on fire, but there was a quarterback waiting just behind him who might. Midseason and still undefeated, he was cast aside just before halftime of the Texas game for Williams, who’d go on to capture everything that once seemed preordained for Rattler. A Heisman (at USC, where Williams followed Riley after the 2021 season). The top overall draft pick, too (barring some sort of shift in the tectonic plates, Williams will be called first next week).
In short order, he faded to college football afterthought, relegated to national punching-bag status (Oklahoma fans once chanted midgame for Williams to take Rattler’s job), the transfer portal and the long, chastening road to starting over.
It was a dizzying paradigm shift. But for all that cratering going on around him, Rattler, himself, did not.
Just before the Texas game and the benching that ensued, his mother, Susan, was diagnosed with cancer. She underwent chemotherapy and was declared cancer-free, and when Rattler thinks about that time, he is clear on which battles were real. “That’s real-life adversity,” he says. “Having to push through that.”
He kept pushing through in football because Susan wanted him to, but he did so with a new kind of clarity. His father wanted to yank him out of OU the second he was benched; Rattler chose instead to ride out the year as a second-stringer before seeking a new homebase. The narrative imploded — Spencer Rattler, QB1 since the time he first held a football — but the story Rattler told himself did not. He was still a starter. Still a star. He was just someplace else’s starter; someone else’s star. It was simply a question of finding where, and for whom, he could “kill it.”
“I’m built different,” he says, explaining how he could lose his job but not his sure-footing. “I truly feel like that.”
He thinks of his bottoming out as something of a résumé-padder, instead. He had to learn three offenses (two of which were pro-style) at his two stops, and that counts for something. He was demoted and humbled in excruciatingly public ways. But he survived. Thrived, he’d tell you.
“I wouldn’t change a thing,” he says. “I wouldn’t change a thing because I’m more ready than ever because of the things I’ve had to go through.”
It helps, of course, that he started over — and started games again — for two years at South Carolina, where he, by and large, helped to revive the Spencer Rattler brand. He reestablished his credentials — by 2023, he was ninth among FBS quarterbacks with a 79.4% adjusted completion rate, per PFF. And at times, as he foretold, he flashed an undeniable ability to kill it. See: the November 2022 game against Tennessee, when he threw for six touchdowns and dispatched the Volunteers who, at the time, were ranked fifth in the country and generally looked like world-beaters.
South Carolina had never had a former No. 1 quarterback recruit — even a bruised and battered one — to call its own. Rattler had had masses fawning over him before, but he had lost them too, and it was a relief to feel valued again. To feel liked again, at all. At his throwing session, he pulls up to the parking lot next to the field in his G-Wagon that showcases a decal of the South Carolina emblem — a palmetto tree beneath a crescent moon. He steps out wearing a black T-shirt with the faces of Gamecocks legends — Jadeveon Clowney, Marcus Lattimore, Stephon Gilmore. Beneath that tee, he sports a Block C tattoo on his left arm, for the university that reclaimed him and that let him reclaim his place in the football world order. A different place, maybe a less exalted one than he once envisioned. But a place all the same.
“I’ve had a lot of NFL people tell me this. That’s one of the reasons they’re buying stock in Spencer Rattler,” says Jim Nagy, who oversees the Reese’s Senior Bowl, college football’s de facto all-star game and unofficial kickoff to the draft process.
“He has come out the other side.”
RATTLER’S YOUTH COACH loves to tell this one story.
Matt Frazier was unnerved, paralyzed over what play to call with six seconds left in the state championship game and his team, the Firebirds, down by five points. He called a timeout, visited the huddle — coaches were allowed in the huddle for kids that age; 9- and 10-year-olds — and looked at his quarterback. “Spence,” he said. “I want to run quarterback counter.”
They’d never run the play before, but Rattler looked at Frazier — Frazier swears this part is true — and promised him: “I got this, Coach.”
He did, in fact, have it. Rattler scored; the Firebirds won by a point.
The long span of Rattler’s career is littered with intoxicating anecdotes where he’s got this. Gauzy memories of telling his coaches, or his teammates, or strangers on the street to watch this. Take eighth grade: He’d regularly throw a pass and before the ball even got to its intended target, he’d throw up his hands. “Touchdown,” he’d say. And it would be.
“That was really the time that I got to see firsthand the moxie,” Zupke says. “OK, this kid knows he’s good. He lets everybody know he’s good. But he backs it up every time.”
Rattler is filled to bursting with moxie, Zupke will tell you. Or swagger, his friends will say. Or confidence, his father will offer. And because we’ve been exposed to him for so long, the perception of that moxie (or swagger, or confidence) has soured into something more distasteful. Arrogance. Worse, maybe. Entitlement.
He keeps a tight circle, but those inside it offer their theory of the case, and a culprit: “QB1: Beyond the Lights,” Season 3. Rattler spent his senior year of high school at Pinnacle trailed by cameras in service of the Netflix show; he was cast as the villain, and so the villain he became, to legions of people he didn’t know but who thought they knew him.
He had big dreams and was loud about them — “two Heismans,” he crowed in one episode. In another, he pointed fingers at his No. 2 quarterback, but never himself, according to that quarterback. Was he being deliberately over the top? Was it just two quarterbacks and friends bickering? It was simpler, more satisfying, to not ask those questions.
“Eyes were always on him,” Zupke says. And they weren’t just watching, he goes on. They were searching for proof of his divahood or his dearth of team spirit or some sin not yet dreamt up.
“I was like everybody else,” says Marcus Satterfield, Rattler’s offensive coordinator for his first year in Columbia. “All I could envision was the Netflix documentary, and when I met him, he was totally the opposite. Not an a–hole. He was grateful. Considerate.”
Austin Stogner started his college career at Oklahoma, transferred to South Carolina alongside Rattler, then repeatedly found himself on the receiving end of this conversation with their new teammates: He’s … awesome? I … didn’t think he would be like that?
Rattler has a mop of tightly coiled blond hair and a pair of diamond studs in both ears on any given day. A lot about him flashes, but his personality is best described quietly. He’s kind, according to most everyone around him. Thoughtful, even, which is why he does things like beeline for a South Carolina freshman running back who picked up a blitz, just to pay his respects. “It’s a little thing, but it’s a big thing too,” says Shane Beamer, his head coach at South Carolina. “We were 4-6 at that point. It’s Game 11 and a hotshot NFL quarterback is going out of his way to lift that freshman up.”
It is hard to hold two things at once sometimes. Rattler can be decent, and he can have outsized confidence. He can show love for an unheralded freshman running back and be a showman.
Back in his “QB1” days, the cameras settled on Rattler in the middle of a game. As he often did back then, he was hearing it extra from his opponents.
“I don’t even know your name, bro,” he told one such opponent. “You know mine.”
That was a person who knew who he was. Knew you did too. And if you hated him for it, all the better because that hate gave him the chance to do what he loved.
“He likes to hush the crowd,” his father says.
When he replays the tape of that moment, hears his own words all these years later, he doesn’t grimace. That was a young version of himself, he says. He probably wouldn’t say it again, but he’s not ashamed of it, either.
Because he still knows who he is. And if the rest of us have forgotten or disagree or don’t even register him at all, well, that’s fine too. It’s just another crowd he can hush; one more chance to make everyone tune in.
In the days before his pro day in Columbia, Rattler was at home in Phoenix and bumped into his old high school coach. “I got pro day coming up,” Rattler told Zupke. “Man, I’m so fired up for it. I’m going to kill it.”
SPENCER RATTLER HAS spent the months leading up to Thursday’s draft proving why he has been impossible to quit.
At South Carolina’s pro day, he zipped 65-yard moon shots again, this time for contingents from the Falcons and Broncos, the Panthers and Raiders. At the combine, he atoned for his 4.95 40-yard dash with a throwing exhibition where he showed his command of velocity and touch. And at the Senior Bowl, he spent the week racking up plaudits as the best quarterback of the week (Williams, Daniels, Maye and McCarthy were not in attendance; Nix, Penix, Sam Hartman and Michael Pratt were) and, eventually, the MVP.
“If he continues on this trajectory, I think you’re going to really like what you get,” says one NFL scout.
The question, of course, is who will get him, and when.
Nagy thinks there’s a case to be made that some eight or nine quarterbacks from this class project to be starters in the NFL. Rattler sits squarely in those ranks, but he’ll almost assuredly hear four of those quarterbacks’ names called before his own. Maybe five. Perhaps six, or — gasp — seven. His highs are so high: Flashes of excellent pocket movement, a knack for making throws from any conceivable angle, that lightning-quick release and effortless delivery. But his lows can be so low: A tendency to take bad sacks, a propensity for interceptions, the uncanny ability, as Mel Kiper Jr. has said, to look like a first-rounder one game and a late-rounder the next. He can make teams at once squeamish and starry-eyed, all which makes his draft projection as clear as mud.
That’s far from those dreamy days filled with top-draft-pick prognostications, but he is no draft afterthought, even after a fall from grace. That’s not nothing.
For one: “It seems like every couple years, there’s a guy that comes outside of the first round and ends up being a really good starter,” Nagy says. “And I think Spencer’s got a chance to be that guy.”
For two: Rattler, as ever, is sure of what lies ahead for himself, even if — especially if, if he’s being honest — not everyone else is too. Where would he draft himself?
“Shoot,” he says, then smiles just a little. “First round.”
He is settled in a lounge chair in the courtyard of his apartment building in Scottsdale. It’s a sprawling complex that looks like it deserves its own zip code, but in his small patch of shade, he gets a brief respite. There has been so much noise these past few months. NFL teams asking questions and scouts projecting and talking heads talking. But for now, there is also quiet. Rattler takes a moment to consider all that distance, from where he started to where he thinks he’ll go next..
“Sleep on me,” he says. “For now.”
He doesn’t say it in this moment, but the idea is there, looming, ever present. Watch this.
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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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Bradford Doolittle
Which version of the 2025 Atlanta Braves is the real version of the 2025 Atlanta Braves?
The first few weeks of the season were quite a journey, one akin to a roller-coaster ride that, like the amusement park attraction, ended more or less where it began — at the beginning.
Entering the season, the Braves were considered the biggest threat to the Los Angeles Dodgers’ supremacy in the National League. While the Dodgers (preseason over/under of 103.5 wins at ESPN BET) were in a tier of their own, the Braves (93.5) topped the next tier, just ahead of a pair of division rivals in the Philadelphia Phillies and New York Mets.
Then Opening Day arrived, with the Braves starting off on a tough seven-game road trip against the San Diego Padres and Dodgers. Atlanta lost all seven games, scoring no runs or one run in four of those defeats.
That is not the way to knock the Dodgers off the mountaintop. Indeed, the old adage about early-season baseball has always been that you can’t win the pennant in April, but you might very well lose it. In becoming the 30th team since 1901 to begin a season with seven straight losses, the Braves flirted with some discouraging history.
Still, the Braves’ April story was as much defined by how they eventually responded to that early slump. Atlanta continued to flounder into the middle of the month, but then reeled off nine wins in 11 games, nearly leveling the ship.
The Braves haven’t yet reached the .500 mark this season, but it seems inevitable they soon will — and they already pushed their run differential out of negative territory. All in all, Atlanta can at least exhale after the initial stumbles.
To sum it up: Atlanta entered the campaign anointed as the Dodgers’ prime challenger — 2025 Braves version 1. They proceeded to put up one of the 30 worst starts in 125 years — 2025 Braves version 2. And before April was over, they’d already climbed back to break-even (or thereabouts) which, in effect, resets their near-disastrous season — 2025 Braves version 3.
Three very different versions of the same team. Which leads back to our initial question: Which Braves are the real Braves?
The 0-7 Braves make ugly history
As mentioned, the Braves are now one of 30 teams to begin a season 0-7, and it’s the fifth time a Braves club has appeared on that list, joining 1919, 1980, 1988 and 2016. That ties the Detroit Tigers for the most of any franchise.
Historically speaking, a start that bad and that prolonged rings the death knell in terms of pennant contention. None of the first 29 teams on the list made the playoffs. Indeed, only two managed to finish over .500, and none of the 29 ended with a positive run differential.
Thus, if the Braves complete their rapid climb back to .500 and keep that run differential in the black, they will have already subverted every other team on the 0-7 list. This really is not that surprising, because the 2025 Braves are way better than those other 29 teams.
In my historical database, among the various team measures I have are three-year power ratings, used to identify how strong (or not strong) teams were in multiseason windows. If we use Atlanta’s season-opening over/under figure as a proxy for their 2025 level, we can estimate their three-year power rating at 95.6 (or 95.6 wins per 162 games).
Only two of the other 29 teams on the 0-7 list had three-year power ratings of 81 or better — the 1945 Boston Red Sox and the 1983 Astros. Boston had a 86.6 three-year power rating, but it was a special case because of the sudden change in rosters across baseball tracing to players returning from military service. The 1945 Red Sox did not have Ted Williams, Dom DiMaggio, Bobby Doerr or Johnny Pesky. But the 1946 Red Sox had all of them, and won the pennant. A very different case than the 2025 Braves.
The 1983 Astros were more akin to these Braves, and were one of the two 0-7 starters that climbed back over .500 by the end of the season. (The other was the 1980 Braves, who finished 81-80 while being outscored by 30 runs.) Houston ended up 85-77 after its terrible start, which actually stretched to nine straight season-opening losses. The Astros finished three runs in the red in differential, however, and had a three-year power rating of 81.4, more than 14 wins shy of the current Braves.
So, of the 30 teams that started 0-7, the Braves were the most likely of them to bounce back from such a terrible beginning. They spent the last half of April proving that to be the case.
How the offense has helped fuel their turnaround
We’ve already noted how anemic the Braves’ offense was during their opening road trip. Atlanta averaged just two runs per game and batted .151 as a team during the skid. The Braves’ collective team OPS (.485) was the worst in baseball.
It took a while, but the Braves’ bats have heated up. Heading into their series with the Dodgers, Atlanta had scored 4.9 runs per game (10th in MLB) and posted a .779 OPS (fifth) since their slump. They’ve done this even as they continue to wait on Ronald Acuna Jr.’s season debut after last year’s knee surgery.
The drivers of the offensive uptick have been a little surprising. Sean Murphy had clubbed seven homers in 17 games since coming off the IL, one season after he hit 10 in 72 contests. Young catcher Drake Baldwin had a 1.009 OPS since April 3 and 30-year-old Eli White was at 1.012.
Those surprising outbursts, along with the expected contributions of Marcell Ozuna and Austin Riley, have helped the offense recover even as Matt Olson (.767 OPS), Michael Harris II (.614) and Ozzie Albies (.664) were still seeking to reach their career levels.
Still, issues linger
The Braves’ pitching still rates as roughly league average for the season as a whole. Last season’s NL Cy Young winner Chris Sale has been inconsistent so far, leaving Spencer Schwellenbach as the only rotation member producing at league average or better.
Sale should be fine, but the Braves very much need their big two to become a big three because of what looks like a lack of high-quality rotation depth. In other words, after getting just one start out of Spencer Strider over the season’s first few weeks, they need him to get healthy and stay that way. Strider (Grade 1 hamstring strain) is expected to return later this month.
In the bullpen, the Braves have been so-so, mostly because of the struggles of star closer Raisel Iglesias to keep the ball in the yard. After surrendering just four long balls in all of 2024, Iglesias coughed up five homers in his first 11 outings. Because the pitching has underachieved, the Braves’ bounce-back has been more warm than boiling.
But the recovery has been undergirded by pretty strong indicators. Atlanta’s run differential during the recent 14-9 stretch is equivalent to a 94-win team over a full season, putting the Braves on par with preseason expectations during that span. The problem of course is that 0-7 start.
The other problem is that the National League is full of really good teams.
Have you heard the NL is stacked?
The Braves sat at 14-16 through 30 games. Let’s say they maintain the 94-win quality they reached during their recovery over their remaining 132 games. That’s a .580 winning percentage, which gets Atlanta to 90 or 91 wins by the end of the season.
If all the teams in the NL were to maintain their current paces (which is admittedly unlikely), there would be five teams that finished with 96 wins or more — the Mets, Dodgers, Padres, Chicago Cubs and San Francisco Giants.
You can see the Braves’ dilemma: Only one playoff slot would be up for grabs. If Atlanta is able to get to 90 or 91 wins, it would be in the mix, but would need to hope that neither Philadelphia nor the Arizona Diamondbacks (both on pace for 88 wins) catch fire, or that one of the top five fall off.
The forecasts don’t rule out anything. At FanGraphs, the Braves are making the playoffs in about 70% of simulations, as their model sees the NL East contenders as better than the non-Dodgers contenders in the NL West. Baseball Prospectus has the Braves getting to 92 wins but reaching the playoffs just 54% of the time.
Finally, at ESPN BET, the Braves’ over/under for wins has fallen to 88.5, the same as Arizona but less than the Mets (94.5), Phillies (91.5) and Padres (89.5). The upstart Giants are at 84.5.
The Braves are back in the running, but those seven games, along with the strength of the top of the NL, have reduced their margin of error considerably.
How well will they play in May — and beyond — and will it be enough?
Atlanta’s season might depend on, well, May, or these key upcoming weeks before Strider and Acuna rejoin the team. However they got here, the Braves are currently a middle-of-the-pack team at the bottom line, both in the win-loss column and by run differential. If they continue at this level while waiting for their stars to return, the strong upper tier of the NL could move away from them.
The upcoming schedule, beginning with the current series against the Dodgers, is tough in ways both obvious and sneaky.
After L.A. departs on Sunday, the over-.500 Cincinnati Reds visit, before Atlanta travels to play the Pittsburgh Pirates. There are two series against the Washington Nationals, one at home and one away, and if you’re still thinking of the Nats as pushovers, you haven’t been paying attention.
There’s a return match with San Diego, a trip to Boston, a visit from the Red Sox, and a key three-game set on the road against the Phillies. It’s not an easy docket for any club, but especially for one missing two of its biggest stars.
The Braves have mostly righted their teetering ship after their stunning start. Since those seven opening losses, they’ve been what we thought they would be. Chances are, as the season progresses, players find their level and the roster gets healthier, that will continue to be the case.
The real Braves weren’t the team that started 0-7. They might be the team that’s played much better since. Now, in what’s shaping up as a crowded and strong upper tier in the NL playoff hierarchy, they have to hope that even if they maintain their expected level, it proves to be good enough for another trip to October.
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