DALLAS — There was a moment, in the midst of it all, when even Dallas Stars forward Mikko Rantanen had to stop, take a breath and realize how bonkers this all was.

“Probably back-to-back hat tricks,” Rantanen said sheepishly. “I didn’t expect that to happen.”

Rantanen elevated his game to stratospheric levels last spring, posting eight goals and six assists in a four-game span, including a one-period hat trick in Game 7 against the Colorado Avalanche, and another one-period hat trick in Game 1 against the Winnipeg Jets. He was so good, so dominant, that it bordered on the absurd. It validated every bit of Dallas’ belief in him — general manager Jim Nill sending two first-round draft picks and dynamic young forward Logan Stankoven to the Carolina Hurricanes to get him, then promptly handing him an eight-year contract at $12 million per year. Worth every penny.

That Rantanen eruption started in Game 5 of the Stars’ first-round series with the Avalanche last April. It rendered his slow start — no goals and one assist through the first four games — a distant memory. It was superstar stuff, instant lore. Even Rantanen was a little in awe of his own accomplishment.

“I guess I was a little surprised, yeah,” he said the other day when it was brought up.

Well, flash forward exactly one year — Game 5 of the first round on April 28 — and the only surprise is how invisible Rantanen has been in this series, which the Stars now trail 3-2 after a rather uninspired 4-2 loss to the Minnesota Wild on Tuesday night on home ice. Oh, he’s getting his points — a goal and five assists through five games — but all of them have been on the power play or with goaltender Jake Oettinger pulled for an extra attacker. Not a single point at even strength.

That’s been the story with the Stars all series: utterly dominant at five-on-four, utterly lost at five-on-five.

There are plenty of reasons the Stars find their season suddenly on the brink. They’ve gotten absolutely no depth scoring — every one of their goals has come from their top five players. They’ve been overwhelmed at even strength as a team, outscored 14-4, having gone more than 217 minutes and counting without a five-on-five goal. And they looked alarmingly lifeless for significant stretches of Tuesday’s game.

There are so many things that need to be fixed, adjustments to be made. They’re not moving the puck quickly enough, and they’re not releasing it quickly enough, instead searching for perfect shots. They’re not getting to the crease, making life difficult on rookie Wild goalie Jesper Wallstedt. They’re not forechecking hard enough, going one and done in the offensive zone far too frequently.

And Minnesota deserves plenty of credit for much of that. But Rantanen deserves some blame for much of it, too.

Michael McCarron has more goals in this series than Rantanen. Stop and read that sentence again. Then go back and watch McCarron’s huge goal in the third period Tuesday night, muscling his way through traffic and taking the puck straight to the net. That was a Rantanen move — forceful, strong, refusing to be denied. Then go back and watch Rantanen going coast to coast earlier in the third, cutting across the neutral zone and into the offensive zone, only to whiff on a shot attempt far from the net under mild pressure from Brock Faber.

Meek Rantanen isn’t going to cut it.

“Well, everyone needs to step up in these kinds of moments,” Stars coach Glen Gulutzan said. “Your top guys, your bottom guys. It’s a team effort to get it done. That’s the key. If you’re going to win a series or win multiple series, you need all contributors, whether they’re at the top of your lineup or the bottom. We need a little bit more from everybody.”

He’s right, of course. Zero goals from the bottom six through five games is almost unfathomable. Wyatt Johnston came up big in Games 2 and 3 but has zero points in the last two losses. Other than Jason Robertson, who has scored in every game this series (and eight straight playoff games overall) and maybe Matt Duchene and Miro Heiskanen, everyone in Victory Green needs to be better. But Colin Blackwell isn’t making $12 million. Oskar Bäck isn’t, either. Hell, neither is captain Jamie Benn, for that matter.

Rantanen is. It starts with him. It has to start with him.

Rantanen was unfazed after the game. It’s who he is. He’s not a guy who’s going to panic or overturn tables. It’s normally to his credit. But this isn’t a normal time, and it’s a little alarming how chill he is. How chill everyone in the Dallas room is.

“Yeah, it gets frustrating sometimes,” Rantanen said. “(But) this is really not the time of year to get frustrated. You’ve got to keep plugging away. You’ve got to adapt, try to find ways, like we’ve been trying. Try to find something else to find the five-on-five stuff.”

That’s the right answer after a three-game losing streak in the regular season. This moment demands more fire, more fury, more feeling.

Yes, the Wild have been outstanding in denying Dallas. The Stars had 52 five-on-five shot attempts in Game 5, but only 22 of them made it to the net. Five minutes into the third period, they still had just 11 shots on goal, with a scant eight of them coming at five-on-five. To a man, the Stars credited the Wild for blocking so many shots, for closing lanes. Minnesota isn’t letting Dallas get the puck to the net or get bodies in Wallstedt’s crease.

But Dallas isn’t forcing pucks to the net or willing its way into Wallstedt’s crease, either. There’s no urgency, no desperation. If there’s such a thing as being too experienced, too composed, too calm in the face of the postseason chaos, that’s the Dallas Stars right now. After three straight trips to the Western Conference final, they almost believe in themselves and their resilience too much. This isn’t the time to be frustrated? OK, fine. But this isn’t the time to be overconfident, either.

Even after being so thoroughly beaten on home ice in a massive game, the Stars all but shrugged it off.

“It’s really not that frustrating,” Benn said. “We knew it was going to be a long series.”

“It’s not the spot you want to be in, but we’re a good road team,” Heiskanen said.

“No time to be frustrated now,” Rantanen reiterated. “That doesn’t help at all.”

It might. A little frustration, a little anger, a little desperation might generate a little of that drive, that fight, that Minnesota has and Dallas seems to lack right now. Because it’s not just a mathematically unsustainably low shooting percentage at five-on-five that’s keeping Dallas off the scoreboard. It’s the quality of those shots. Gulutzan called this series a “blue-paint war,” and that’s a fight the Stars are losing badly. The Wild are keeping the Stars on the periphery — and that includes arguably the premier power forward in the game, Rantanen.

At five-on-five, Rantanen is playing to a 36.8 percent expected-goals share in this series, on the ice for four Wild goals and zero Stars goals. As a line, he, Johnston and Justin Hryckowian have earned fewer than 30 percent of the expected goals. It’s hardly all on Rantanen’s shoulders. But he’s the Star of Stars, the top guy on a top team. That comes with an added burden, with higher expectations. And right now, Rantanen’s not even the highest-scoring Moose in the series at five-on-five. Minnesota’s Marcus Foligno at least has a goal.

We know Rantanen can be better than this. Because a year ago, he was better than almost anybody we’ve ever seen. That player — that one-man wrecking crew, that bull-rushing menace, that force of nature — is in there.

And he has to come out to play Thursday in St. Paul, or we won’t see him again until the fall.

“The confidence is high, I would say,” Rantanen said. “Just looking at the lineup, we have a lot of good players.”

But only one Rantanen. And Dallas needs him more than ever.