Playoff Scoring and the Mikko Rantanen Trades

Everybody won, even if everyone often also loses

As you may have heard, Colorado is on the brink after traumatizing their fans with a multi-goal collapse for the second straight postseason. Vegas can complete the sweep at home tomorrow night in a series that has persistently refused to obey our expectations.

Carolina evened their series 1-1 after escaping Raleigh with an overtime win in Game 2, which means the Canadiens won’t have their own opportunity to go up 3-0 tonight at Centre Bell. Despite getting thoroughly outshot by Carolina (as everyone does), the Habs have saved their attempts for where (and when) they matter most. Frederik Andersen has begun to look thoroughly beatable as a result.

The fickle nature of goal-scoring gets intensified in the playoffs, where teams can convince themselves that they were “just one goal away” for purposes of blame or excuse as the situation dictates. Season-long trends can vanish in a puff of smoke, because it turns out that a seven-game series really isn’t long enough for all the bounces and saves to even out.

Watching Carolina and Colorado in their respective conference finals, I couldn’t help but think about just how valuable playoff scoring is, and how desperate the good teams get to ensure they have a roster where they can get that one goal when they need it. This has been an issue for many good Carolina teams in past years, where the lack of name-brand¹ superstars becomes apparent in later rounds.

Since 2018, Carolina has been among the best playoff teams in hockey—at least, for the first two rounds. After that, things have been rough. Here’s how they’ve done in the three Eastern Conference finals they’ve reached over the years:

• 2019: Swept 4-0 by Boston

• 2023: Swept 4-0 by Florida

• 2025: Lost 4-1 to Florida

That’s all gone on during the same stretch where fellow perennial contenders like Tampa Bay, Colorado, Vegas, and Florida have found ways to reach the summit. Carolina, however, keeps falling short.

This could still be their year, thanks to that Nikolaj Ehlers winner the other night that kept their backs off the wall for the time being. But you know the voices were lurking at the back of their mind (or their mind’s ear, I guess?) when Montreal nearly took a 2-0 series lead on the road. It’s happening again.

Dallas fans know well how constantly stumbling in the third round can play tricks on the mind. It’s when all the mounting bumps and bruises can finally turn into bigger problems, and a loss in those rounds can all but wipe away any of the goodwill earned over the preceding two. Nathan MacKinnon, Cale Makar, and now Valeri Nichushkin know about this phenomenon far too well.

Teams all want the heavyweight scoring ability that gets a final four team over the line, and they’ll do almost anything to get it if they don’t think they have enough of it. This is what led to Mikko Rantanen’s USA tour a year ago, and it’s what I wanted to talk a bit more at length about today.

But again, about that scoring. Sure, you’ll have the odd series where Brett Howden or Eric Robinson get hot, but on balance, the best players tend to show up in the biggest moments. Take the 2000 West Final between Dallas and Colorado, for example: the only players to score more than one goal in that seven-game classic were Hull, Modano, Nieuwendyk, Forsberg, and Milan Hejduk.²

Do you remember the puck off the post that saved Belfour’s bacon in the final minute of that Game 7 in 2000, by the way? Many thanks to a certain local media member for ensuring we still have this footage: