MacKinnon instead took the time to praise Rantanen rather than go scorched earth on his bosses.
Nathan MacKinnon kept it classy.
Some leaders have the brazenness to call out their management publicly when they disagree with a team decision; we saw that with Dylan Larkin, but when given the opportunity, MacKinnon took the high road ahead of the 2025 IIHF men’s World Championship in Stockholm, Sweden, where he will represent Team Canada alongside good friend and rival, Sidney Crosby.
MacKinnon Praises Rantanen
MacKinnon was pressured to answer whether the Colorado Avalanche made a mistake by trading Mikko Rantanen. The organization dealt the superstar right winger on January 25 to the Carolina Hurricanes, which then shipped him to the Dallas Stars at the trade deadline after they unsuccessfully attempted to sign him to a long-term deal.
Upon landing in Dallas, Rantanen signed an eight-year, $96 million contract extension. Fueled by spite, and rightfully so, the Finnish player set his sights on wrecking the team that traded him. That he did. Rantanen scored eight points combined in Game 6 and Game 7 of the first-round Stanley Cup Playoffs series against Colorado, including a hat trick—all in the third period—in the finale to send his old team packing.
Rantanen continued his hot streak in Game 1 of the Stars’ Second Round series against the Winnipeg Jets, scoring three consecutive goals in the second period en route to a 3-2 victory for Dallas. Rantanen became the first player in NHL history to score back-to-back hat tricks in a single period in the postseason. He also became the third player in NHL history to score consecutive hat tricks in the playoffs, the first since Hall of Famer Jari Kurri, who achieved the feat with the Edmonton Oilers in Games 5 and 6 of the 1985 Clarence Campbell Conference Final. The last player to do it before Kurri was Doug Bentley, who reached the pinnacle with the Chicago Blackhawks in Games 4 and 5 of the 1944 semifinal.
All of this would seem to indicate the Avalanche made a grave error, but rather than denigrate the individuals who sign off on his checks, MacKinnon shared some thoughts on his former teammate.
“It’s tough to say,” MacKinnon said via The Hockey News’ Remy Matsey. “I can’t really give you an answer. I don’t know. Obviously, I’d love to have him on the team, but he’s not on the team, so I don’t really know what to say. Definitely miss him. Obviously, he scored a hat trick on us in Game 7. Amazing player and great friend as well.”
MacKinnon and Rantanen were both drafted by Colorado and played side-by-side for more than a decade in a partnership that saw the highest of highs when they won a Stanley Cup together in 2022 to an all-time low in the 2016-17 season when the Avalanche accumulated just 48 points.
“He’s an amazing player,” MacKinnon said. “As you know, he did so much for our team, so no surprise that he’s dominating. Yeah, he’s been playing great.”
There was also a quick discussion about how the Avalanche lost against the Stars in Game 7 of the first round.
Although MacKinnon gave credit to Dallas for knocking them out of the playoffs for the second straight season under the tutelage of head coach Pete DeBoer, he couldn’t help but wonder if his team could have pulled it off if they weren’t whistled for a few costly penalties.
“They just don’t go away,” MacKinnon said. “I thought, overall, we had a good series. We played well enough to win. Obviously up 2-0 with 10 minutes left. I think some of those penalties were, I don’t know if those are playoff Game 7 penalties, but it is what it is. I feel like our team is close. You know, it’s a first-round loss, but it’s a pretty good team we played.”
It’s hard to say the Avalanche and Stars have a rivalry. At this point, it’s just an abusive relationship. Maybe if the Avalanche win a series against them it will be a rivalry.
While Dallas has a shot to score their first Stanley Cup championship in 26 years, MacKinnon zeroes in on the World Championship. Team Canada squares off against Team Slovakia at 6:20 a.m. ET on Saturday in their opening matchup.
Takeaways
MacKinnon probably did the right thing by choosing not to take the scorched earth approach. Joe Sakic and Steve Yzerman, who currently serves as the GM of the Detroit Red Wings, always led their teams with class. Dylan Larkin’s decision to call out Yzerman at their end-of-season press conference for their supposed lack of effort at the trade deadline didn’t appear to sit well with Yzerman. And had MacKinnon followed suit, Sakic likely would have had a similar reaction.
As painful as the end of this season was, MacKinnon made the difficult but wise choice, albeit its abundantly clear to almost everyone now that Rantanen shouldn’t have been traded.