Instant reaction from the Avalanche’s 4-2 loss to the Dallas Stars in Game 7 of their first-round Stanley Cup Playoffs series.
1. Game 7 demons exorcised: The Avs entered Saturday night with ghosts aplenty. Nathan MacKinnon, Cale Makar, Gabe Landeskog and head coach Jared Bednar had never won a winner-take-all Game 7. They’d never come back to win a series. And they’d also never dispatched a team coached by Peter DeBoer, losing three separate series with the veteran coach behind the bench with San Jose (2019), Vegas (2021) and Dallas (2024). And those demons remain — for another year at least. In perhaps the most painful way possible. Mikko Rantanen, himself winless in four Game 7s, stuck the dagger in with two straight third-period goals (a third came on an empty net). Then he twisted it on the power play, starting a tic-tac-toe that ended with Wyatt Johnston scoring the game-winner from an impossible angle. This is the kind of loss that lingers. The kind that leads to pink slips.
Mikko Rantanen’s hat trick dooms Avalanche in brutal Game 7 loss
2. O’Connor strikes … again: A four-minute power play came up empty in the first period, and the Avs had fewer than 10 shots on goal midway through the second period when Parker Kelly got sent to the penalty box. Naturally, that’s also when Logan O’Connor did what he does best: Make something happen. And, of course, everyone’s favorite greasy goal scorer did it on the penalty kill. The puck squirted loose along the boards in the neutral zone, and O’Connor went on the attack, securing the turnover and delivering a perfect centering feed to a rushing Josh Manson for a one-timer that Stars goaltender Jake Oettinger had no chance of stopping. It was O’Connor’s fourth assist, and sixth point, of the series. And yet another reminder of how much his absence hurt the Avs’ playoff run a year ago.
3. Going bust: Avs GM Chris MacFarland pushed all his chips into the center of the table for this one, executing eight in-season trades that completely reshaped the roster. Two remade their goaltending depth. Another seemingly solved the post-Nazem Kadri 2C problem. And the most explosive sent away a franchise icon in Rantanen … who just so happened to be the one who killed their season on Saturday. Unlike their basketball counterparts playing a Game 7 of their own back in Denver, the Avs have never been afraid to take risks. But right now, after a second first-round exit in three seasons, the Avs have to be wondering if it was all worth it. All of their picks in the first three rounds of the 2025 and ’26 NHL drafts are now gone. So, too, is top prospect Calum Ritchie. And that 2C solution? Brock Nelson will be a 33-year-old free agent this summer. A massive offseason awaits.
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