By the [Absurd] Numbers: Trying to Comprehend Mikko Rantanen's Impossibly Impressive Playoff Performance
So far
The Dallas Stars are eight games into their playoff run, which is one game further than teams like the Minnesota Wild have been for the last ten years, and eight games further than teams like Buffao have been for, ah, much longer.
Mikko Rantanen had just one assist in his first four games. The next four games have gone differently: 8 goals and 6 assists for 14 points in four games. I think lots of Stars fans probably heard that “MacKinnon Merchant” slander from Colorado after the Stars got Rantanen, but I don’t know any of them expected to see Rantanen basically dispel every shred of doubt like this.
If those crticisms were an annoying fly buzzing around the head of Stars fans through four games, Rantanen leveled a bazooka at their compound eyes in the next four contests, and kablammo: he blew past Mario Lemiuex, perhaps the most physically gifted hockey player of all time, to set a record that looks unassailable, at least until Rantanen gets bored again.
Truly elite players have a way of showing up, and every bit of the elite aura around Rantanen’s playoff history, steady temperament and top-drawer skillset was validated in a whirlwind of vindication that cost Colorado their season, their power play coach, and a not insigificant amount of trust with the Avalanche fanbase. But that’s none of our concern, today.
As for Rantanen, Stars fans have a lot to appreciate just eight games into this playoff run. It’s been a glorious buffet for hockey gluttons to gorge themselves upon, his last few games. But if you’ve managed to moderate your appetite, here’s a respectable sampling of some of the records he’s shattered over his recent stretch:
Rantanen is the first player in Stanley Cup playoff history with multiple three-goal periods in the same postseason.
He is only the fourth player in NHL history to achieve the feat at any point in his career, joining Wayne Gretzky, Maurice Richard and Tim Kerr. [ESPN]
Rantanen is one of only three players to record back-to-back hat tricks in the playoffs. The others? Jari Kurri and Doug Bentley.
I met Jari Kurri this year, by the way. He’s a delight. That’s not one of the records Rantanen broke, but I’m including it here because it was fun for me, personally. I have not met Doug Bentley. But here’s a Doug Bentley stat for you, from his Wikipedia page:
Okay, back to the hat tricks:
The last player to have consecutive games with a hat trick in a single period, in playoffs or regular season, was the best goal-scorer of all time: Alex Ovechkin in 2017. [ESPN]
Rantanen is also the first player in franchise history (since 1967) to score a natural hat trick in the playoffs. [ESPN]
What of Joel Kiviranta, you say? Not quite a natural hatty, sorry. Alex Radulov scored two goals in that game, as did Vladislav Namestnikov, two years before Rick Bowness would end up coaching him in Dallas, and five years before the Stars would face Namestnikov in the second round of the playoffs.
Joe Pavelski’s four-goal Game 1 against Seattle two years ago wasn’t a natural one either, but here’s something even more unnatural about it: Max Domi assisted on three of those goals. I have no memory of that despite being at that game.
As far as the revenge angle, Rantanen also set some NHL records in that department:
But that was only after Game 7. Now that Rantanen has another 3-point period to his name, he joins Leon Draisaitl as the only NHL players to record four straight games with 3+ points in the playoffs.
Wait, think about that. Wayne Gretzky never did that. Lemieux never did that, nor McDavid, Crosby, MacKinnon, or anyone in the 1980s, when goals were stocked in vending machines for ten cents apiece. Rantanen just did that, and he did it most recently against the best goaltender around (playoff performance notwithstanding).
Rantanen, right now, leads the NHL in playoff points and goals, with an 8-7=15 line as of Thursday afternoon.
He’s tied for second in total shots on goal with Auston Matthews (who has just two goals), trailing some guy named Nathan MacKinnon, who put 38(!) pucks on net in seven games, which is a lot. MacKinnon will not be recording any more shots on goal in this year’s playoffs.
Okay, but what about in Stars/North Stars franchise history? Let’s take a look at some franchise records Rantanen is currently holding.
Rantanen has eight playoff goals as a Dallas Star, which is one behind Radek Faksa and Denis Gurianov, and tied with Jason Spezza, Mason Marchment, and Evgenii Dadonov.
Rantanen’s 15 points put him 58th in franchise history, one point behind Pat Verbeek and Mattias Janmark, and tied with Mark Tinordi, Stéphane Robidas, and Brad Richards.
Brad Richards is a decent comp, actually, because he needed only 18 playoff games to record those 15 points, which comprised three goals and 12 assists.
Of course, Richards only got the one playoff run during his time in Dallas. If not for that, Richards would surely have piled up more points, as he did during his time in Tampa Bay, when he won a Stanley Cup with Jeff Reese.
Richards would also still be ahead of Rantanen on this list if not for Evgeni Nabokov. IYKYK.
But of course, these are not entirely fair rankings, as Rantanen has just eight playoff games so far. Where does he rank among players with eight of fewer playoffs games in franchise history?
First. Duh. Second would be Tommy Williams (1969-70) and Shawn Horcoff who both scored six points apiece in just six games.
Yes, that’s right: Horcoff was a point-per-game player in that first Lindy Ruff playoff series against the Anaheim Ducks. That was actually Horcoff’s second-best playoff scoring total in his career, largely because he only made the playoffs five times in fifteen years.
Tommy Williams only spent one-and-a-half seasons with Minnesota, but he had a long career spanning over 800 games between the NHL and WHA.
Okay, now the fun stuff: Rate Stats.
You know that when the Stars acquired Rantanen, he had 101 points in 81 playoff games, or an average of 1.25 points per game in the playoffs, which is insane.
Now, Rantanen has 116 points in 89 playoff games: an average of 1.30 points per game. In the playoffs. He is, quite literally, one of the best playoff hockey players in NHL history.
As for the Stars’ franchise, Rantanen’s hilarious 1.88 points-per-game pace is ahead of even the most outlandish small-sample-size data points from a few players in the silly era of hockey scoring
.Rantanen’s 1.88 number is over half a point beyond Tony McKegney and Dennis Maruk, and it’s nearly a full point past the first serious contender on this list in Brian Bellows, a real point-per-game playoff stud.
You can see Hull and Modano down there , and obviously Modano’s totals are the most impressive, given the low-scoring environment in which he played (both league and system) for most of those 174 playoff games.
Russ Courtnall does just barely edge out Rantanen in assists per game (0.89 to 0.88), but Rob Flockhart is the only other player with a goal-per-game playoff track record in franchise history, and he did so in one game—what turned out to be the last playoff goal of Flockhart’s career.
The point of all this is, we have never seen someone do what Rantanen has been doing for this team. The league has almost never seen it in over a century either, at least all of these things together.
Mikko Rantanen is a superstar. If the Colorado or Carolina propaganda gave you pause when you heard that phrase before, the last eight games—against very good NHL teams playing their hardest with big-time playoff stakes—have hopefully given you a release from any doubt.
We are witnessing something special. It’s probably unsustainable, because literally nobody has done what Rantanen is doing for even the brief time he’s been doing it in Dallas, let alone a full-on playoff run deep into the Final rounds.
It doesn’t have to make sense, because it’s making history. And if we know anything in 2025, it’s that making history usually happens when sense goes out the window. Better just hang on for the ride.
Among all the crazy Rantannen numbers, one hasn’t been mentioned. Between the 7 minute mark of the 3rd period of game 7 vs Avs and 17 minute mark of 2nd period of game 1 bs Jets Mikko scored 6 goals and 7 points in 50 minutes of hockey.
He literally scored 6 goals in less than a game of hockey - in the playoffs - in game 7!
Just an aside, Tommy Williams was my little league baseball coach when he was playing for the North Stars. He is the reason I have been a STARS fan for the last 57 years....