{"id":150984,"date":"2026-03-28T16:42:14","date_gmt":"2026-03-28T16:42:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/150984\/"},"modified":"2026-03-28T16:42:14","modified_gmt":"2026-03-28T16:42:14","slug":"dallas-stars-activate-mikko-rantanen-off-ir-could-return-against-pittsburgh-penguins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/150984\/","title":{"rendered":"Dallas Stars activate Mikko Rantanen off IR, could return against Pittsburgh Penguins"},"content":{"rendered":"

All signs are pointing to Mikko Rantanen<\/a> returning from injury in the Stars<\/a>\u2019 road game in Pittsburgh Saturday afternoon.<\/p>\n

The Stars activated Rantanen off IR Saturday morning, according to the NHL media site, ahead of the Stars\u2019 4 p.m. CT game against the Penguins. <\/p>\n

The Stars won\u2019t hold morning skate Saturday, so Rantanen\u2019s official status will be known closer to game time.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s very close to playing,\u201d Stars coach Glen Gulutzan said Friday<\/a>. \u201cI think, certainly, he\u2019ll play one of these games. If it\u2019s not Saturday, certainly it\u2019ll be Sunday, or maybe both.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sports Roundup<\/p>\n

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Rantanen has not played for the Stars since Feb. 4 \u2014 ahead of the Olympics where he suffered a lower-body injury in Finland\u2019s semifinal matchup with Canada on Feb. 20.<\/p>\n

Rantanen \u2014 who joined the team ahead of last season\u2019s trade deadline and signed an eight-year, $96 million deal at the time \u2014 was Dallas\u2019 leader in points up until his injury with 69 (20 goals and 49 assists) in 54 games this season.<\/p>\n

The Stars managed to tie a franchise record points streak<\/a> without Rantanen in their early games after the break but have since struggled offensively, losing their last four and five of their last six.<\/p>\n

Even with Rantanen\u2019s return, Dallas would still be without forwards<\/a> Roope Hintz, Radek Faksa and Sam Steel<\/a> due to injury.<\/p>\n

Twitter\/X: @Lassimak<\/a><\/p>\n

Dallas Stars playoff tracker: They\u2019re in, but who will their first-round matchup be?<\/a>3 things to know about Stars-Penguins: Dallas looks to right the ship vs. Pittsburgh<\/a><\/p>\n

Find more Stars coverage from The Dallas Morning News here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"All signs are pointing to Mikko Rantanen returning from injury in the Stars\u2019 road game in Pittsburgh Saturday…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":150985,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[334,22105,68810,68809,73,75,74,726,19453],"class_list":{"0":"post-150984","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pittsburgh","8":"tag-brief","9":"tag-dallas-stars","10":"tag-injury-update","11":"tag-mikko-rantanen","12":"tag-pittsburgh","13":"tag-pittsburgh-headlines","14":"tag-pittsburgh-news","15":"tag-sports","16":"tag-stars"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150984","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=150984"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/150984\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/150985"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=150984"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=150984"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=150984"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}