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  • Alden Gonzalez, ESPN Staff WriterJun 26, 2024, 07:00 AM ET

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      ESPN baseball reporter. Covered the L.A. Rams for ESPN from 2016 to 2018 and the L.A. Angels for MLB.com from 2012 to 2016.

The Los Angeles Angels trailed by a run halfway through their May 28 game against the New York Yankees, and Willie Calhoun figured he’d plan ahead. Calhoun, a journeyman outfielder, thought he might be used as a late-game pinch hitter. So he made his way to Angel Stadium’s indoor batting cage and turned on Trajekt Arc, the cutting-edge machine that has quickly become a go-to throughout the industry for its ability to replicate major league pitchers.

Calhoun cued up all of the Yankees’ high-leverage relievers, most of whom he’d never faced, tracking as many pitches as he could over the course of a couple of innings. When he was summoned to face Luke Weaver in the bottom of the eighth, he felt ready. Calhoun took back-to-back changeups for balls, then saw a 91-mph cutter on the inner half and lofted a base hit to right field, a leadoff single that ignited a two-run inning and ultimately gave the Angels a come-from-behind victory.

“I was able to see how it was looking before I got into the box,” Calhoun said. “That machine is nice.”

Trajekt — essentially a pitching robot that can play the video of any pitcher’s windup, then spit out all of his pitches from the appropriate arm angle based on the reams of data available — is now used by 19 major league teams, plus three others in Japan, despite not existing in any form until 2021. This year, the league office has allowed Trajekt to be used in-game, a polarizing decision that has in some ways splintered the industry based on personal interest.

Some hitters, frustrated by an era in which pitchers throw harder and nastier than ever, have celebrated what they consider a rare advancement.

“This is the first piece of technology we’ve had that truly benefits us,” one position player said. “Before this we had nothing.”

Plenty of pitchers disagree, pointing to recent rule changes implemented to create a more hitter-friendly environment, and consider Trajekt an unfair advantage — particularly in-game.

“You wanna have it, fine,” a veteran pitcher said. “But three hours before game time, those machines need to be shut off.”

Trajekt previously required an Internet connection to operate, a violation of Major League Baseball’s sign-stealing policy. Modifying the device so that it could operate offline prompted the league to allow it for in-game use, according to an MLB official. Team executives were notified this past offseason.

“We already allow other pitching machines that replicate pitch characteristics,” Morgan Sword, MLB’s executive vice president of baseball operations, wrote in a statement to ESPN, alluding to another, less-involved pitch-replication device called iPitch.

“Once [Trajekt] moved the system offline during games, there was no longer a reason to stand in the way.”

The effects appear to be minimal thus far. Leaguewide batting average sits at .242, the third-lowest mark since 1900, behind only 1968 (the year before the mound was lowered) and 1908 (at the heart of the dead-ball era). But the strikeout rate against relievers is below 23% — 22.9%, to be exact — for the first time in eight years, a subtle decline some have at least partly attributed to the in-game use of Trajekt.

It’s why one of those relievers, Yankees lefty Caleb Ferguson, is adamantly against it.

“It’s impossible for a pitcher to mimic the at-bat,” he said. “We don’t even really get the chance at all to try to have that upper hand where you can come in and face a guy and read the result, see what’s gonna happen if I face whoever. But they could be hitting my fastball for the next three hours? That’s not fair.”

Hitters say they find it helpful, but they’ll also argue it’s not that simple. The machine — four feet deep, six feet wide and, all told, roughly 1,500 pounds — is too bulky to travel with, making it only an option for teams when they’re at home. Hitters largely don’t swing off it in-game, worried that it might make their hands sore by frequently getting jammed against high velocities. Some have said it’s also hard to pick up the baseball’s spin. And because the image it projects is basically a hologram, it’s much more difficult for hitters to time themselves off a pitcher’s arm slot than it would be in real life.

The Trajekt Arc sits on a track, allowing it to move left to right to spit out pitches.

Then there’s the situation at Arizona’s Chase Field, where the indoor batting cage is not big enough for the Trajekts to be stationed any more than 54 feet away from home plate, rendering the machine useless as a timing mechanism and leaving the Arizona Diamondbacks‘ Trajekt Arc to mostly collect dust.

“Ninety-nine [mph] feels like 120 for us,” D-backs outfielder Pavin Smith said near the end of May. “I don’t love it, to be honest. I liked it more in spring training. It was further back, so it felt more realistic. Now every guy looks like he’s twice as good.”

Trajekt, costing somewhere in the neighborhood of $15,000 a month and requiring a three-year commitment, is typically set up 56 to 57 feet away to account for pitchers’ average extension. Standard game balls can be used, but players have taken to a softer version of Rawlings’ baseball, the L10 Pro. Unlike iPitch, a stationary two- to three-wheel machine, Trajekt sits on a gantry, allowing it to spit baseballs anywhere from four to seven feet off the ground, and can move left to right along a track.

Teams can input Hawkeye data, which MLB uses to collect in-game metrics, and they can implement information from Rapsodo and Trackman devices, which also catalog metrics, from players’ training sessions. Videos of pitchers’ windups come from the cameras that are stationed behind home plate at every major league ballpark, with teams capable of uploading the videos that correspond to each pitch to project the precise arm slot. Teams only have access to their own data. The more the machine is used, the more accurate it becomes at replicating pitches.

What it’s like to face New York Yankees ace Gerrit Cole (well, at least a holographic version of him).

Often, though, hitters are seeing what they believe is the best version of each pitch.

“It really varies,” Los Angeles Dodgers outfielder Jason Heyward said. “Some look similar, some don’t. You’re seeing them throw the ball, but I still think it’s completely different in the game because there’s room for error. Pitchers mean to throw a ball here, and they throw it here. They mean to throw it here, and they throw it here, all that kind of stuff. So I think that’s where it’s not very realistic. It’s like video game pinpoint every time. But still — just getting a visual, an idea, of what someone has and how that may come out is cool. It’s helpful, for sure.”

Ten years ago, a teenager named Joshua Pope came up with the concept behind Trajekt while debating his high school friends about how many pitches it would take to get a hit off Marcus Stroman, then the ace of his hometown Toronto Blue Jays. Pope, now 28, wondered why there wasn’t a physical manifestation of all the publicly available pitching data. He attended the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada, in part to learn from the mechanical engineering professor, Dr. John McPhee, who developed a hockey slapshot robot. Pope then received a grant of $60,000 Canadian dollars, raised additional financing, built a mock-up and launched the company Trajekt Sports in 2019, becoming its CEO.

During a tutorial at the 2019 winter meetings, Chicago Cubs director of innovation Bobby Basham became intrigued by the ball-inserter technology that allows for gyro spin, a revolutionary advancement that separated Trajekt from any pitching machine that came before it. Basham ultimately became Pope’s first customer, bringing it to the Cubs in the spring of 2021. By 2022, seven teams had it. A year later, it had grown to 12. Now it has spread to nearly two-thirds of the industry.

Pope’s company — co-founded by one-time classmate and current chief technology officer Rowan Ferrabee — now has 15 full-time employees and produces 20 machines a year. Forty of them are in use within MLB, with some teams having as many as six — one on the major league side and one at every minor league affiliate. Some are considering renting additional ones to use out of their academies in the Dominican Republic.

Pope said approximately half the machines are used at regular-season ballparks and the other half are used in the minors. He has heard of Triple-A catchers who use it to get a feel for the stuff thrown by the major league pitchers they’ll catch after getting promoted; pitchers who look at the shape of their own pitches to get a better feel for how they’re seen from the batter’s box; and, notably, teams shuttling prospects through reps against major league pitchers at their spring training complexes to get a baseline for performance.

“Obviously the most exciting ones are when a big-name player is facing a starting pitcher that day and in the first inning they hit a home run because they predicted a slider coming and they leveraged that off Trajekt and got a result,” Pope said. “We have countless anecdotes like that. But I think the more nuanced one, of evaluation and preparing for the game even prior to making it to the big leagues, is also something that we find really exciting, because it gives more opportunity to more people to have a chance at extreme, high-level practice, which is hard to get.

“Players can only throw full speed so often, and their reps are limited in training. And therefore it’s very tough to develop to that next level.”

A spring training ACL tear prevented Rhys Hoskins from playing for the Philadelphia Phillies in 2023. But when the Phillies made a playoff run late into that season, Hoskins held on to faint hopes that he might contribute. His month of October was spent at the team’s spring training facility in Clearwater, Florida, hitting off the Trajekt machine in hopes of getting as acclimated to major league pitching as possible if summoned at a moment’s notice. He began by holding a clicker instead of a bat, pressing a button to indicate swing decisions to help him distinguish balls from strikes, then progressed to full-on hitting, seeing up to 200 pitches a day.

“I felt pretty ready in terms of being in the box from a hitting standpoint in order to join those guys if that’s what the organization decided, mostly because you’re just able to replicate some of the speed of the game,” said Hoskins, now a member of the Milwaukee Brewers. “It’s hard to do that with a BP arm or even a normal machine.”

Hoskins, who ultimately wasn’t activated for last year’s World Series run, now regularly uses Trajekt to track pitches between at-bats when he serves as the designated hitter for home games. He has implored the Brewers’ pitchers to use it themselves to “remind them how nasty they are.” Angels pitching coach Barry Enright recently did that with his starters, bringing them all in to watch their pitches from behind home plate as something of a confidence boost to encourage strike-throwing.

Within the next two years, Pope’s goal is for every major league team to deploy at least one Trajekt Arc. He thinks more pitchers will realize its benefits, but it’s still very much a hitters’ tool. High-speed cameras are used to dissect their mechanics, weighted bats have helped to increase their bat speed, Blast Motion (a sensor placed on the knob of bats) became popular for its instant swing metrics. But a hitter’s best chance of keeping up with contemporary velocity and break, coaches say, is training the eyes by seeing those pitches as often as possible.

Virtual-reality hitting machines developed out of that concept, helping to spawn physical pitch-replicators like iPitch. Trajekt has taken it to another level — adding the visual of an opposing pitcher and the freedom of movement that has made it feel more lifelike.

“Some really high-tech machines, tools, toys, don’t really exist on the hitting side,” Hoskins said. “For this to kind of be the first big thing obviously means there’s more coming. There’s always ideas coming; it’s just, ‘How do you execute them?’ But this is a great start.”

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Leafs regroup, Stolarz likely out for must-win

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May 15, 2025

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Leafs regroup, Stolarz likely out for must-win

  • Kristen ShiltonMay 15, 2025, 12:50 PM ET

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      Kristen Shilton is a national NHL reporter for ESPN.

Boos rained down at the final horn in Toronto’s Scotiabank Arena on Wednesday night as the Maple Leafs moved closer to extending their 57-year Stanley Cup drought with a 6-1 blowout loss to the Panthers.

Fans even threw their jerseys on the ice as Toronto saw its 2-0 series lead turn into a 3-2 deficit. But coach Craig Berube wants his players to get out of their heads for now.

“That last game was overthinking and not playing hockey,” he said. “Right now, [players] need to stick together tonight as a team and take a breath. Stop thinking about the game. Relax. We’ll get thinking about the game when it matters.”

To get back to Toronto for a Game 7, the Leafs will have to win in Florida, but they likely won’t have starting goaltender Anthony Stolarz. He has been sidelined since Game 1 of the series with an undisclosed injury. He resumed skating over the weekend and was on the ice for a 30-minute workout on Thursday, but Berube doubted Stolarz would join the Leafs in Florida for Game 6.

That leaves his replacement Joseph Woll, who gave up five goals on 25 shots Wednesday.

Players met after the game to break down what went wrong, and Berube had a team meeting planned for Thursday after the Leafs landed back in Fort Lauderdale.

“A loss is a loss,” Berube said. “If we [had] lost 2-1 [on Wednesday] and it was a close game, would it really matter today? We got beat. I’ve been in this situation before. We’re all going to be down and dejected, but we can’t be. We have to regroup.”

That includes the Leafs’ top skaters. Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner and William Nylander have failed to score against Florida.

In Game 5, the Panthers repeatedly stymied Toronto’s rush attempts and pounded them with a smothering forecheck that left the Leafs reeling offensively.

Meanwhile, Florida peppered Woll until defenseman Aaron Ekblad broke through with the game’s first goal late in the first period. Toronto’s own mistakes — including a Dmitry Kulikov shot beating Woll off the stick of Leafs’ forward Scott Laughton and a baffling turnover by Marner in his own zone to set up a Jesper Boqvist strike — led to a three-goal second period. After AJ Greer made it 5-1 Florida with his first-ever playoff goal, Woll was gone in favor of Matt Murray.

“[It was] very disappointing,” said Morgan Rielly. “But at the end of the day, whether we lost the way we lost last night or we lost in overtime, whatever it is, we’re still in a position where we’re ready to fight. We have to go down there [to Florida] and play our best game. We can’t dwell on all sorts of [other] things.”

The Leafs were in control of the series against Florida early on, collecting wins in Games 1 and 2 and mounting multi-goal leads in Game 3. It was late in that outing though when Florida flipped the switch — and they haven’t looked back. The Panthers rallied in the second period of Game 3 to score three goals and take their first lead of the night. Rielly’s goal at the midway point of the third period tied the game and forced overtime, but Brad Marchand scored the game-winner for Florida.

That Rielly marker would stand as Toronto’s last goal on Sergei Bobrovsky for nearly six periods of hockey. Toronto was shutout 2-0 by the Panthers in Game 4 and were dangerously close to being blanked again if not for Nick Robertson’s marker late in Game 5.

Bobrovsky struggled to open the series against the Leafs, allowing nine goals in the first two games for an .820 SV%, but he has slammed the door since late in that Game 3 win. He has turned aside 54 of 55 shots through Games 4 and 5 for a .982 SV%.

Robertson’s goal did little for the fans.

“It’s tough,” said Rielly. “But [fans] have the right to do what they want to do. We need to improve and play better. We expect to have a team that’s going to go out and win and compete. When that doesn’t happen, everyone is upset.”

Rielly is the longest-tenured member of the Leafs and has experienced the many highs and lows Toronto has endured trying to exorcise past playoff demons. Brandon Carlo — acquired at the March trade deadline — is newer to Toronto’s history but shared Rielly’s view that, despite the emphatic fan response to their poor performance, it’s not something that should linger.

“In a game like that, you don’t want to overthink those things too much,” said Carlo of the extracurriculars. “It is a passionate fanbase … there’s going to be ups and downs for sure, but from the standpoint of playoff series in the past, I’ve been in these situations myself. Had bad games in the playoffs; it’s not just subject to this group by any means. I think that needs to be taken into account, too.”

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Stanley Cup playoffs daily: Can the Capitals and Jets force Game 6s?

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May 15, 2025

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Stanley Cup playoffs daily: Can the Capitals and Jets force Game 6s?

May 15, 2025, 07:00 AM ET

The second round of the 2025 Stanley Cup playoffs has reached the point where elimination games will be played every night. Thursday night, it’s an elimination doubleheader.

First up are the Washington Capitals, down 3-1 and hosting the Carolina Hurricanes (7 p.m. ET, TNT). In the nightcap, the Winnipeg Jets are in a similar scenario, down 3-1 at home hosting the Dallas Stars (9:30 p.m. ET, TNT).

Will either team force a Game 6?

Read on for game previews with statistical insights from ESPN Research, a recap of what went down in Wednesday’s games and the three stars of Wednesday from Arda Öcal.

Matchup notes

Carolina Hurricanes at Washington Capitals
Game 5 | 7 p.m. ET | TNT

Leading 3-1 heading into this game, the Hurricanes are -4000 to win the series, per ESPN BET, while the Caps are +1300. The Canes have the third-shortest odds to win the Cup (+325), while the Caps have the longest (+7500).

The Canes are 8-0 in best-of-seven series in which they held a 3-1 lead; in Stanley Cup playoff history at large, teams that hold a 3-1 lead have gone on to win 91% of the time.

Carolina’s Frederik Andersen had a 21-save shutout in Game 3, then didn’t allow a goal until the third period of Game 4. His shutout streak ended at 123:24, which was fifth longest in Whalers/Hurricanes franchise history.

Seth Jarvis‘ goal to make it 2-0 Hurricanes in Game 4 was the 16th of his postseason career, the most in franchise history for a player before his 24th birthday.

Alex Ovechkin has been somewhat quiet this round for Washington, but his power-play goal in Game 4 earned him higher positioning on two all-time lists. He now has 77 career postseason goals, putting him 12th all time (breaking a tie with Mario Lemieux), and his 31 career power-play goals are now alone in fifth place all-time (breaking a tie with Nicklas Lidstrom and Joe Pavelski).

Dallas Stars at Winnipeg Jets
Game 5 | 9:30 p.m. ET | TNT

Following their Game 4 win, the Stars’ odds to win the series shifted to -1200, while the Jets’ are now +600. Dallas’ Cup-winning odds shifted to +275, while Winnipeg’s are now +4000.

In franchise history, the Stars have gone 13-1 in best-of-seven series when leading 3-1. Their lone series loss came as the Minnesota North Stars against the Detroit Red Wings in 1992.

Mikael Granlund‘s hat trick in the Stars’ Game 4 win included two power-play goals. That made him the second player in North Stars/Stars history with two power-play goals as part of a hat trick — Dino Ciccarelli accomplished the feat in 1982.

Dallas’ Mikko Rantanen continues to dominate the postseason. He’s atop the leaderboard for points (19) and goals (nine), and has the shortest odds to win the Conn Smythe as playoff MVP (+375).

With the Stars’ Game 4 win, Jake Oettinger became the third goaltender in North Stars/Stars franchise history to win five straight home games to begin a postseason, joining Ed Belfour (six straight in 2000, five in 1999) and Cesare Maniago (five in 1968).

The Jets will be glad to play at home again. They have gone 0-5 on the road this postseason, and have been outscored 25-8.

Kyle Connor enters Game 5 one goal behind Paul Stastny (2018) for second on the single-postseason franchise goal-scoring leaderboard, with five. Mark Scheifele (14, in 2018) appears safe at No. 1 unless the Jets can rally to make the conference finals.

Öcal’s three stars from Wednesday

1. Panthers defensemen

In addition to keeping the Maple Leafs at bay until it was too late it didn’t really matter, three Cats defensemen scored goals in Game 5, tying franchise record for most in a single playoff game.

Kapanen scored the series-clinching goal in OT against the Golden Knights — and was +4000 to do it, per ESPN BET. Fans of junior hockey will remember he also scored the golden goal in the 2016 IIHF world junior championship against Russia.

3. Florida scores by committee

An amazing 14 Panthers had one or more points in this game, which is the most in a single game in franchise history — 12 Panthers had a point in Game 3 of this series.

Wednesday’s recaps

Florida Panthers 6, Toronto Maple Leafs 1
FLA leads 3-2 | Game 6 Friday

While this series had previously been close, Game 5 was a one-sided affair. The Panthers were successfully keeping the Leafs from generating much offense, while also knocking on the offensive door themselves repeatedly. Aaron Ekblad finally broke the seal at 14:38 of the first after sustained pressure in the Toronto zone, and it was off to the races after that. Dmitry Kulikov, Jesper Boqvist and Niko Mikkola added goals in the second period, with A.J. Greer and Sam Bennett joining the party in the third. It was the first goal of the postseason for Kulikov, Boqvist, Mikkola and Greer. Nicholas Robertson would add a tally for the Leafs with just over a minute remaining, but that was far too little, far too late. The Panthers can put an end to this series at home in Game 6. Full recap.

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0:26

Sam Bennett slots home a 6th goal for Panthers

Sam Bennett stuns the Toronto crowd with the Panthers’ sixth goal vs. the Maple Leafs.

Edmonton Oilers 1, Vegas Golden Knights 0 (OT
EDM wins 4-1, faces DAL or WPG next

Throughout this series, the Oilers’ depth has shown up to help the scoring burden on the top stars; the same cannot be said for the Golden Knights’ depth — and Vegas’ stars didn’t have the greatest series either. For the second straight game, no Vegas player could solve Stuart Skinner in the Edmonton cage, which meant that the Oilers needed just one goal to take the W. It took 67:19 of playing time to find that goal, but Kasperi Kapanen scored the opportunistic game- and series-winning tally. It was the second career overtime game-winning goal for Kapanen (his first was in 2017, with the Maple Leafs). The Oilers are on to the Western Conference finals for the second straight year, and will take on the winner of the Dallas Stars–Winnipeg Jets series. Full recap.

play

0:53

Oilers call series after Kasperi Kapanen scores OT winner

Kasperi Kapanen somehow gets his stick on the puck last on a scramble in overtime as the Oilers clinch the series vs. the Golden Knights.

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‘I think he’s on a mission’: How Mikko Rantanen has leveled up in the 2025 playoffs

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May 15, 2025

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'I think he's on a mission': How Mikko Rantanen has leveled up in the 2025 playoffs

  • Greg WyshynskiMay 15, 2025, 07:30 AM ET

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      Greg Wyshynski is ESPN’s senior NHL writer.

DALLAS — Before he became the most dominant player in the 2025 Stanley Cup playoffs, Mikko Rantanen wasn’t exactly himself.

“I think this year has been such a whirlwind for him that it took him some time to get comfortable with us,” Dallas defenseman Brendan Smith said.

In his four previous NHL seasons with the Colorado Avalanche, Rantanen was fifth among all players in goals (163) and seventh in points per game (1.27). He was well on his way to hitting his marks again this season, with 25 goals and a 1.31 points-per-game average with the Avalanche.

But then, 49 games into his season, his world crumbled.

Rantanen was traded to the Carolina Hurricanes on Jan. 24 as part of a three-team trade. After 13 unremarkable games — and his stated intention not to sign an extension with Carolina before unrestricted free agency — Rantanen was traded a second time to the Dallas Stars before the March 7 NHL trade deadline, signing an eight-year extension with the team to finally stop the carousel from spinning.

He was under his career averages in 20 regular-season games with Dallas (five goals, 0.90 points per game). His postseason started quietly, with one assist through four games against his old teammates from Colorado in the first round.

The questions swirled around him from fans and media: Was this performance worth $96 million through 2032-33 with a full no-movement clause? Could Rantanen put up elite numbers without Nathan MacKinnon and Cale Makar, who fueled them in Colorado? Would he live up to his reputation as a playoff hero, having been fourth in postseason points (62 in 48 games) since 2020?

Who was Mikko Rantanen?

“When you think about his journey this year, he’s been through a lot,” Dallas coach Pete DeBoer said. “There’s been a lot written about him. There’s been a lot said about him. There’s been a lot of doubters out there, based on the situations he’s been in and how it’s looked at different points.”

His teammates watched Rantanen struggle to find his groove.

“It’s an interesting profession where you can be great, but then you get put in a different situation, and all of a sudden you’re trying to figure out comradery, where you fit, all these little things,” Smith said. “I’m not sure if it really fit with Carolina. And then with us, he was still trying to work and find out where he fit.”

And now?

“Now, he looks comfortable,” Smith said, with a laugh.

Since Game 5 against the Avalanche, Rantanen has 18 points in seven games — five of them Dallas victories, as they’ve pushed the Winnipeg Jets to the brink of elimination with a 3-1 lead in their second-round series, seeking a third straight trip to the Western Conference finals.

“I’m trying to stay in the moment. I’m happy to help the team and try to keep doing that as much as I can, both ends of the ice,” Rantanen said. “But even keel after wins and good games.”

Rantanen led all scorers in the postseason with 19 points in 11 games after Tuesday night. He’s the first player in NHL history with five three-point games through a team’s first 10 playoff games in a single postseason. He set another NHL record by either scoring or assisting on 13 consecutive goals by his team. At one point, Rantanen had factored into 15 of 16 goals for Dallas.

“He’s just getting started. He’s just warming up here,” DeBoer said after the Stars’ Game 3 win against Winnipeg. “I think he’s on a mission.”

THE 2015 NHL DRAFT class was absurdly loaded.

The Avalanche watched players like Connor McDavid, Jack Eichel, Mitch Marner, Noah Hanifin, Zach Werenski and Timo Meier come off the board before landing Rantanen, an 18-year-old winger playing against men in Finland’s SM-liiga.

Over the next 10 seasons, Rantanen would become the second-highest goal scorer from that draft class (294) behind McDavid (361), the three-time MVP and five-time scoring champion. His chemistry with MacKinnon helped both of them achieve offensive dominance. In his back-to-back 100-point seasons with the Avalanche in 2022-23 and 2023-24, around 75% of Rantanen’s total ice time was spent with MacKinnon.

“He helped grow this organization into a Stanley Cup winner and a contender every single season. He’s a big reason why,” MacKinnon said.

In Colorado’s 2022 Stanley Cup-winning run, Rantanen had 25 points in 20 games.

Rantanen signed a six-year extension in 2019 with a robust average annual value of $9.25 million. MacKinnon eclipsed that with his 2022 extension that carried a $12.6 million AAV. As Rantanen crept closer to unrestricted free agency in Summer 2025, there were two questions swirling around the Avalanche: How much would he ask for and what would it mean for their salary structure, both in what MacKinnon was making but also in what Makar will make when his contract is up in 2027?

Rantanen was optimistic something would work out this season to keep him with the Avalanche.

“It was a weird situation overall. Negotiations were going on with Colorado. Six weeks before the deadline, we were negotiating,” he recalled. “I felt at that time that I needed to go talk to the front office, face to face. I told them I’ll be flexible. That I want to play here for a long time.

“Then a couple days later, they traded me. So that was emotional.”

The Hurricanes sent forward Martin Necas, at the time their leading scorer, to Colorado in a package for Rantanen. When the Hurricanes reached out before the trade to explore a sign-and-trade with Rantanen, he told them his focus was on staying in Colorado.

“They still did the trade. That was their decision,” he said.

He described his first couple of days with Carolina as “shocking.” Rantanen claims he joined the Hurricanes with an open mind. But after a couple of weeks with the team, Rantanen didn’t feel like it was home. That included “where I fit in the playing style,” as he adapted to coach Rod Brind’amour and his team structure.

Rantanen has refuted speculation that he arrived in Raleigh with a trade list in hand. He also said reports that it was “a family decision” not to sign long-term to stay in Raleigh weren’t accurate. “It was a hockey decision at the end of the day and nothing else,” he said.

Rantanen provided Carolina GM Eric Tulsky with a short list of trade destinations, if they didn’t want him as a free-agent rental who left for nothing in the summer.

Dallas GM Jim Nill said the Hurricanes began making exploratory calls about two weeks before the trade deadline.

“We were one of the teams they called to see if there was interest, and then with about a week to 10 days before the trade deadline, we said, ‘You know what? Let’s look at it,’ but still not thinking that was the direction we were going to go,” he said.

Eventually, that was the direction they went in, sending promising young forward Logan Stankoven and four draft picks to the Hurricanes to land Rantanen.

As much as things had shifted dramatically for Rantanen, they suddenly shifted for the Stars as well.

“It definitely changes things when you have a guy like that, a star player. It changes the identity of your team,” DeBoer said.

“I think we’ve been built around four lines and waves of pressure and work. Probably more like a Carolina-type identity. I think when you add a player like that, you have to take on a little bit of a different identity,” the coach said. “You have to coach your team a little bit differently. You have to get him out there more. So I think that’s the challenge is to integrate him and build around that without losing what’s made us successful here.”

Rantanen’s postseason dominance is directly linked to him finally feeling at ease in Dallas.

Finally being with his people helped.

BEFORE GAME 4 against the Winnipeg Jets, the Stars’ social media feed published a photo of five players with the caption, “For the first time, our new Finnish Mafia is at full strength.”

Rantanen (born in Nousiainen) stood smiling between forward Roope Hintz (Tampere) and defenseman Miro Heiskanen (Espoo). On the other side of that trio were center Mikael Granlund (Oulu) and defenseman Esa Lindell (Vantaa).

That 3-1 win marked the first game in which all five Dallas Finns were playing in the same game. Heiskanen was lost to a knee injury before Granlund was acquired from the San Jose Sharks in February, and Rantanen arrived at the deadline. Along with goalie Jake Oettinger, the Finns were the difference: Granlund had a hat trick in the win, with assists going to Rantanen and a returning Heiskanen, who hoped the Finnish 5 could play as a unit at some point.

“We’ll see if they put us together there,” Heiskanen said. “That would be nice. Maybe next game.”

Rantanen played the majority of his time with Hintz after coming over from Carolina, but played only 6:55 with Granlund at 5-on-5 in the regular season. That changed in the playoffs, where 65% of Rantanen’s even-strength ice time has been spent with Granlund as his center.

“It’s great to be on the same side, for sure,” Granlund said. “We all can see what he’s doing out there right now. He’s such a great player, and he’s playing at a really high level.”

The line of Hintz, Rantanen and Granlund is plus-3 in goal differential, and has an on-ice shooting percentage of 15.4%.

Smith said the Stars players were waiting for DeBoer to unite the Finns.

“We we were talking about it for a couple weeks: Put the Finns together and let them deal with it,” Smith said. “Let them get angry at each other, let them be happy with each other, let them deal with the situation. And finally Pete did it. And, like I said, Mikko now looks comfortable.”

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Mikael Granlund completes first career playoff hat trick

Mikael Granlund scores three goals for the Stars in Game 4 vs. the Jets.

That line is one factor behind Rantanen’s record-setting scoring pace in the playoffs. The Stars’ power play is another, where he has two goals and four assists for a unit clicking at a 32.4% conversion rate.

Winnipeg coach Scott Arniel said defending Rantanen has gotten tougher with that line clicking.

“He maybe doesn’t get enough credit for how well he does make plays and that line is certainly dangerous,” he said. “He’s a big man and he had the puck a lot. Again, the biggest thing is time and space. I know that you hear that a lot in hockey, but at the end of the day, the more he holds onto [the puck], the more he’s comfortable, the harder it is to deny what he’s trying to do next.”

What Rantanen is trying to do next is complete the mission.

Continue his push for the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP, an award for which he’s currently the favorite. Shatter the conference finals ceiling the Stars bumped up against in the last two postseasons. Lift the Stanley Cup again, this time without MacKinnon lending a hand. Prove that the Stars’ investment in him is a sound one. Make Colorado regret trading him, if that hadn’t already been communicated when Rantanen went Beast Mode — or is that Moose Mode? — in eliminating the Avs in the first round.

“Somehow the deal should have probably gotten done in Colorado. It didn’t. So he’s like, ‘I’m trying to prove that I’m elite world class,'” Smith said.

“If you want to say he’s a mission, I can understand that. Look all the way around the room. Everybody’s got something that they want to prove to everybody and prove about themselves. Right now, [Mikko is] trying to prove that, ‘Hey, I’m worth it.'”

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