4-2 loss to the Minnesota Wild<\/a> on Tuesday night on home ice. Oh, he\u2019s getting his points \u2014 a goal and five assists through five games \u2014 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.<\/p>\nThat\u2019s been the story with the Stars all series: utterly dominant at five-on-four, utterly lost at five-on-five.<\/p>\n
There are plenty of reasons the Stars find their season suddenly on the brink. They\u2019ve gotten absolutely no depth scoring \u2014 every one of their goals has come from their top five players. They\u2019ve 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\u2019s game.<\/p>\n
There are so many things that need to be fixed, adjustments to be made. They\u2019re not moving the puck quickly enough, and they\u2019re not releasing it quickly enough, instead searching for perfect shots. They\u2019re not getting to the crease, making life difficult on rookie Wild goalie Jesper Wallstedt. They\u2019re not forechecking hard enough, going one and done in the offensive zone far too frequently.<\/p>\n
And Minnesota deserves plenty of credit for much of that. But Rantanen deserves some blame for much of it, too.<\/p>\n
Michael McCarron has more goals in this series than Rantanen. Stop and read that sentence again. Then go back and watch McCarron\u2019s 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 \u2014 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.<\/p>\n
Meek Rantanen isn\u2019t going to cut it.<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, everyone needs to step up in these kinds of moments,\u201d Stars coach Glen Gulutzan said. \u201cYour top guys, your bottom guys. It\u2019s a team effort to get it done. That\u2019s the key. If you\u2019re going to win a series or win multiple series, you need all contributors, whether they\u2019re at the top of your lineup or the bottom. We need a little bit more from everybody.\u201d<\/p>\n
He\u2019s 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\u2019t making $12 million. Oskar B\u00e4ck isn\u2019t, either. Hell, neither is captain Jamie Benn, for that matter.<\/p>\n
Rantanen is. It starts with him. It has to start with him.<\/p>\n
Rantanen was unfazed after the game. It\u2019s who he is. He\u2019s not a guy who\u2019s going to panic or overturn tables. It\u2019s normally to his credit. But this isn\u2019t a normal time, and it\u2019s a little alarming how chill he is. How chill everyone in the Dallas room is.<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, it gets frustrating sometimes,\u201d Rantanen said. \u201c(But) this is really not the time of year to get frustrated. You\u2019ve got to keep plugging away. You\u2019ve got to adapt, try to find ways, like we\u2019ve been trying. Try to find something else to find the five-on-five stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s the right answer after a three-game losing streak in the regular season. This moment demands more fire, more fury, more feeling.<\/p>\n
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\u2019t letting Dallas get the puck to the net or get bodies in Wallstedt\u2019s crease.<\/p>\n
But Dallas isn\u2019t forcing pucks to the net or willing its way into Wallstedt\u2019s crease, either. There\u2019s no urgency, no desperation. If there\u2019s such a thing as being too experienced, too composed, too calm in the face of the postseason chaos, that\u2019s 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\u2019t the time to be frustrated? OK, fine. But this isn\u2019t the time to be overconfident, either.<\/p>\n
Even after being so thoroughly beaten on home ice in a massive game, the Stars all but shrugged it off.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s really not that frustrating,\u201d Benn said. \u201cWe knew it was going to be a long series.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not the spot you want to be in, but we\u2019re a good road team,\u201d Heiskanen said.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo time to be frustrated now,\u201d Rantanen reiterated. \u201cThat doesn\u2019t help at all.\u201d<\/p>\n
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\u2019s not just a mathematically unsustainably low shooting percentage at five-on-five that\u2019s keeping Dallas off the scoreboard. It\u2019s the quality of those shots. Gulutzan called this series a \u201cblue-paint war,\u201d and that\u2019s a fight the Stars are losing badly. The Wild are keeping the Stars on the periphery \u2014 and that includes arguably the premier power forward in the game, Rantanen.<\/p>\n
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\u2019s hardly all on Rantanen\u2019s shoulders. But he\u2019s the Star of Stars, the top guy on a top team. That comes with an added burden, with higher expectations. And right now, Rantanen\u2019s not even the highest-scoring Moose in the series at five-on-five. Minnesota\u2019s Marcus Foligno at least has a goal.<\/p>\n
We know Rantanen can be better than this. Because a year ago, he was better than almost anybody we\u2019ve ever seen. That player \u2014 that one-man wrecking crew, that bull-rushing menace, that force of nature \u2014 is in there.<\/p>\n
And he has to come out to play Thursday in St. Paul, or we won\u2019t see him again until the fall.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe confidence is high, I would say,\u201d Rantanen said. \u201cJust looking at the lineup, we have a lot of good players.\u201d<\/p>\n
But only one Rantanen. And Dallas needs him more than ever.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DALLAS \u2014 There was a moment, in the midst of it all, when even Dallas Stars forward Mikko…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":614146,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[4825,4828,385,99],"class_list":["post-614145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-dallas-stars","tag-minnesota-wild","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=614145"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614145\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/614146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=614145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=614145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=614145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}