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

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.”

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.'”