Johnston breaks tie at 16:04 for Dallas, which scores 4 straight goals to advance to 2nd round
Avalanche at Stars | Recap | Round 1, Game 7
DALLAS — Mikko Rantanen had a hat trick and an assist, and the Dallas Stars rallied with four straight goals in the third period to eliminate the Colorado Avalanche with a 4-2 win in Game 7 of the Western Conference First Round at American Airlines Center on Saturday.
Rantanen is the first player in NHL history to score a hat trick in the third period of a Game 7, and the first to record multiple four-point periods in a single postseason after also achieving the feat with a goal and three assists in the second period of Game 6.
“I expected a seven-game series even before Game 1,” Rantanen said. “Ups and downs in the series, a couple of games we didn’t play well at all. Even tonight, a little bit flat first two periods, gave up a goal on our power play and they score first shift of the third, kind of takes the air out of the building.
“But I think belief was there with the group the whole time. I was able to make a play to get the first one, then the crowd started to roll, we got a couple of looks after that. The crowd really helped us there at the end.”
COL@DAL, Gm7: Rantanen notches first postseason career hat trick for 4-point game
Dallas will face the Winnipeg Jets or St. Louis Blues in the second round. Game 7 of that series is Sunday (7:00 p.m. ET; CBC, TVAS, SN, TBS, MAX, FDSNMW).
“I never felt we were going to lose. Even when it was 2-0 and we didn’t have anything going,” Stars coach Pete DeBoer said. “There’s a belief in that room that something was going to happen, and, obviously, Rantanen put the team on his back in the last 10 minutes. But I think the group is pretty special. They have had a lot of stuff thrown at them from an adversity point of view, and they keep responding and keep responding, and keep answering the doubters. I felt something was going to happen, but I could not have predicted that.”
DeBoer is now 9-0 all time in his career in Game 7s, the most wins of any head coach in NHL history.
Wyatt Johnston broke a tie at 16:04 of the third for the Stars, who are the No. 2 seed from the Central Division. Matt Duchene had two assists, and Jake Oettinger made 25 saves.
“You can’t write it up any better than that,” Oettinger said of Rantanen’s performance. “Guy comes over, knocks out his old team, puts the team on his back. One of the best individual performances I’ve seen in the playoffs in my life. So happy for him. This one was fun. I think that just shows us in here, it’s not over ’til it’s over. We’re never out of it. Down 2-0, would have been easy for us to say it just wasn’t our year. But we just wouldn’t be denied.”
COL@DAL, Gm7: Johnston rips it home from a tough angle to the put the Stars on top on the power play
Nathan MacKinnon and Josh Manson scored for the Avalanche, who were the No. 3 seed from the Central. Mackenzie Blackwood made 15 saves.
“It’s pretty shocking,” MacKinnon said. “Felt like we were in total control and then Mikko, credit to him, he made some amazing plays. He was a difference-maker and he took over. I don’t know; I’m in shock to be honest with you. Felt like we were in complete control of the game the whole time and just lost it. They were missing their best [defenseman in Miro Heiskanen] and maybe their best forward (Jason Robertson), so we still couldn’t beat them. Yeah, I don’t know. I don’t know what we’re going to do.”
Rantanen cut Colorado’s lead to 2-1 at 7:49 of the third on a shot from the high slot into the top corner of the net blocker side.
“I don’t really have any words right now to describe what happened,” Avalanche defenseman Cale Makar said. “We felt like our play was good enough 5-on-5 and we controlled the pace of the game. Even when it went 2-1, I felt like we weathered it well. Just a tough circumstance of events.”
Rantanen’s second goal of the game tied it 2-2 at 13:46 on a wraparound that banked in off Colorado defenseman Samuel Girard’s skate.
Johnston then gave Dallas a 3-2 lead on the power play 2:18 later with a one-timer off a cross-ice pass from Duchene, and Rantanen completed the hat trick with an empty-net goal with three seconds remaining for the 4-2 final.
“There probably wasn’t a whole lot of belief that we were going to be able to get it done with 15 minutes left in the third, so just awesome that we were able to battle back, especially in front of the home crowd,” Johnston said. “It was amazing out on the ice. My ears are still ringing from how loud they were. Hopefully, a lot of pretty special games and special wins coming up in the next little while.”
Manson scored a short-handed goal to give the Avalanche a 1-0 lead at 9:50 of the second period. After Stars defenseman Thomas Harley lost a puck battle along the boards, Avalanche forward Logan O'Connor fed Manson as the trailing forward and his shot bounced in off Oettinger after the goalie made the initial stop.
COL@DAL, Gm7: Manson rings one off the post and in for a short-handed goal to open scoring
“You want to try to play your best hockey as much as you possibly can,” Colorado captain Gabriel Landeskog said. “When you’re not, you want to make sure your B-game is as good as it possibly can get. You know it’s easy to sit here and say we should’ve done this, should’ve done that, but I thought we deserved better to be honest with you.
“Doesn’t matter, it’s not going to change the fact, but I thought we played a hard-fought series and carried the play and we just couldn’t find a way to [win]. Lose a couple (games this series) in overtime and then this one is obviously a heartbreaker.”
MacKinnon made it 2-0 just 31 seconds into the third on a shot from the top of the crease on a delayed penalty call.
“It’s tough because you put your heart and soul into the whole year, the series, all of it and then you’re in a good position and then it slips away on you,” Avalanche coach Jared Bednar said. “So, it’s tough because I know how hard these guys worked and how bad they wanted it and that’s all you really think of at this point.”
NOTES: Johnston became the first player in NHL history to score multiple series-clinching goals in Game 7s at the age of 22 or younger (2023 Western Conference Second Round against the Seattle Kraken). … Rantanen became the first player in NHL history, regular season or playoffs, to record four points in a period in two consecutive games. … DeBoer became the first coach in NHL history to record multiple comeback wins when trailing by two or more goals in the third period of a Game 7 (also first round in 2019).

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