<\/p>\n
Dallas Stars right wing Mikko Rantanen (96) fights for the puck against Minnesota Wild left wing Matt Boldy (12) during the first period of an NHL hockey game at American Airlines Center on Thursday, April 9, 2026, in Dallas.<\/p>\n
Smiley N. Pool\/The Dallas Morning News<\/p>\n
FRISCO \u2014 Jim Nill<\/a> said he never felt Mikko Rantanen<\/a> was the same after the Olympics, and on Thursday, the Stars<\/a>\u2019 general manager revealed why.\u00a0<\/p>\n Nill said in his end-of-season media availability that Rantanen tore his MCL during the Olympics<\/a> while playing for Team Finland. Rantanen was out for over a month<\/a> and didn\u2019t return to game action until March 28.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Nill said in watching Rantanen after his return, he could tell the injury was still impacting him.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cHe loves to get players on his back, roll around the corners and come back, but he couldn\u2019t do that,\u201d Nill said. \u201cHe was falling down.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n The GM also said the Stars would have liked for Rantanen to have another week or two longer to recover. He will not need surgery this\u00a0offseason.\u00a0<\/p>\n Make Dallas News a preferred source so your search results prioritize writing by actual people, not AI.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Add Preferred Source<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n After scoring 20 goals before his injury, Rantanen scored just two in his final 10 regular-season games and had just one goal and seven points in six playoff games. He recorded just one point at even strength in the postseason.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Rantanen said Monday that he did not consider himself injured in the playoffs, but both his general manager and head coach Glen Gulutzan said they felt the injury derailed the second half of his season.\u00a0<\/p>\n Rantanen\u2019s injury was one on a very long list of injuries the Stars had to deal with throughout the season. Nill addressed every injury that players suffered in a season where the Stars were not at full strength for any of their 82 regular-season games or six playoff games.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve never seen that before,\u201d Nill said. \u201cI give the coaches, and I give the players a lot of credit.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Nill said Radek Faksa\u2019s injury might be the most severe. Faksa suffered a concussion during the Olympics, but during his recovery, he had a freak accident where he was stepped on by a skate, causing a serious laceration in his foot that also cut a ligament.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Nill said Faksa may need further surgery this offseason, and the injury remains serious, even though Faksa returned for the final two games of the regular season and the playoffs.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cBefore the Olympics, my biggest fear was somebody\u2019s going to get hurt, and we lost three guys,\u201d said Nill, grouping in Roope Hintz, who returned sick and then tore his hamstring in multiple places in his first game back.\u00a0<\/p>\n Here are all the other injuries Nill disclosed:\u00a0<\/p>\n Oskar B\u00e4ck: injured wrist in October, sprained shoulder in playoffs\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Nathan Bastian: broke finger in March\u00a0<\/p>\n Jamie Benn: punctured lung in training camp, concussion in December\u00a0<\/p>\n Lian Bichsel: fractured leg and ankle in November, sprained shoulder last game of playoffs\u00a0<\/p>\n Michael Bunting: groin injury in March\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Adam Erne: MCL sprain in December\u00a0<\/p>\n Radek Faksa: concussion at Olympics, foot laceration during recovery\u00a0<\/p>\n Thomas Harley: broke foot in November\u00a0<\/p>\n Miro Heiskanen: torn oblique in April, sprained ankle in playoffs<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Roope Hintz: sick at Olympics, double hamstring tear in March\u00a0<\/p>\n Arttu Hyry: high ankle sprain in playoffs\u00a0<\/p>\n Nils Lundkvist: fractured leg and ankle in October, facial laceration and concussion in playoffs\u00a0<\/p>\n Ilya Lyubushkin: missed time in regular season with shoulder injury\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Tyler Myers: groin injury in March\u00a0<\/p>\n By signing up, you agree to our Terms Of Use<\/a> and acknowledge that your information will be used as described in our Privacy Policy<\/a>.<\/p>\n Mikko Rantanen: torn MCL at Olympics\u00a0<\/p>\n Tyler Seguin: torn ACL in December\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Sam Steel: groin injury in March\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dallas Stars right wing Mikko Rantanen (96) fights for the puck against Minnesota Wild left wing Matt Boldy…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":252909,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[732,102,104,103,88534,92216,90779,90855,87996,104417],"class_list":["post-283978","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas","tag-article","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-headlines","tag-dallas-news","tag-tp-jim-nill","tag-tp-jamie-benn","tag-tp-mikko-rantanen","tag-tp-miro-heiskanen","tag-tp-roope-hintz","tag-tp-tyler-seguin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283978","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=283978"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283978\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/252909"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=283978"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=283978"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=283978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/p>\n
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