Stars’ Mikko Rantanen adds name to Finnish hockey lore in win vs. Predators

Mikko Rantanen is really starting to find his stride with the surging Dallas Stars. The 28-year-old recorded two more assists in a 5-1 shellacking of the Nashville Predators on Thursday night, giving him nine points in his last six games.

The Finnish forward’s second assist also saw him reach the 700-point mark; he’s the third-fastest player of Finnish descent to hit the milestone, per The Score’s Josh Wegman. It took Rantanen just 645 games to achieve the milestone.

The only players from Finland to do it faster are Hall of Famers and hockey legends Jari Kurri (483 games) and Teemu Selanne (541 games).

Rantanen is now seventh on the NHL’s all-time scoring list among Finnish players, per Wegman, behind Selanne (1457 points), Kurri (1398 points), Saku Koivu (832 points), Aleksander Barkov (778 points), Olli Jokinen (750 points) and Mikko Koivu (750 points).

While there’s a realistic chance Rantanen can pass four of those players, it’s unlikely any Finnish skater will be able to match the incredible careers of Selanne and Kurri.

Still, Rantanen continues to impress; he’s up to four goals and 13 points in 13 games since joining the Stars. That has him at 83 points in 75 games in 2024-25 split between the Colorado Avalanche, Carolina Hurricanes and Stars — good for 11th league-wide.

The 2022 Stanley Cup champion adds another superstar element to this Stars team, and Dallas is making a late push for the President’s Trophy with seven games left in their regular-season.

Stars coming for President’s Trophy

The Stars have been one of the league’s best teams as of late, winning seven games in a row to close the gap on the first-place Winnipeg Jets to just four points — and they have a game in hand.

Although the Jets also won on Thursday night, a 4-2 victory over the Utah Hockey Club, Dallas remains hot on their heels with two weeks left in the campaign.

“Once we start playing the right way, we can roll four lines and we’re deadly,” said Stars forward Mason Marchment, who scored the game-winning goal and added an assist against the Preds, per NHL.com’s Robby Stanley. “It’s awesome when you can trust all four (lines) going out and all pairs of defenses going out. It makes it easy.”

Even without Miro Heiskanen and Tyler Seguin in the lineup, Dallas just continues to win prolifically. And if they get those two key veterans back in the lineup for the Stanley Cup Playoffs, they will be even better as they look to rectify back-to-back Western Conference Final losses.

After bowing out to the Vegas Golden Knights in 2023 and Edmonton Oilers in 2024, Pete DeBoer’s club is laser-focused on returning to the Stanley Cup Final for the first time since 2020. The Stars lost a hard-fought, six-game series to the Tampa Bay Lightning that year.

The team remains without a championship since 1999, but the way the roster has played, this is probably the best chance they have to break the long drought.

The Stars will look to make it eight consecutive victories against Sidney Crosby and the visiting Pittsburgh Penguins on Saturday afternoon.