Dallas might be team to beat (and other first-round Stanley Cup Playoff thoughts)

Some thoughts on the first-round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

1. The first-round of the 2025 Stanley Cup Playoffs ended with two of the best Game 7s you could ever imagine this weekend, with both the Winnipeg Jets and Dallas Stars overcoming two-goal third period deficits to advance. That is the sort of thing that simply does not happen in those games.

Prior to Saturday there had only ever been three teams to come back from a two-goal deficit in the third period of a seventh game and win.

Then Dallas and Winnipeg did it in back-to-back days.

The Dallas win had the most intrigue just because it was two potential Stanley Cup contenders (the Stars and Colorado Avalanche) playing in the first-round, with the added drama of Dallas’ Mikko Rantanen going against the team that traded him earlier in the season.

There was always a chance that move would come back to bite the Avalanche, but I am not sure they could have possibly anticipated it going as poorly as it did. Not only did Rantanen eventually end up in their own division, not only did they have to play him in the first-round, but he absolutely went off in Games 5, 6 and 7 of the series with 11 points in those games, including a third period hat trick in the decisive game.

It was one of the most clutch Game 7 performances of all-time.

Dallas won two of those games down the stretch where Rantanen dominated.

That is going to linger in Colorado for a while.

The overall takeaway here from a league-wide perspective, is that those two games salvaged what was, for the most part, a rather uninspiring opening round.

Toronto provided some drama toward the end of its series, but most of the other series went as expected without much intrigue or drama (the two Game 7s aside).

2. Speaking of Dallas, how are the Stars NOT considered the team to beat in the Western Conference right now? And perhaps even the NHL?

Not only did they beat an outstanding Colorado team in the first-round, but they did so without getting a single game from their best defenseman (Miro Heiskanen) and one of their best forwards (Jason Robertson).

In most cases a team losing two players of that caliber would be too big of a blow to overcome.

It did not matter for the Stars.

There were some times in that series where Colorado seemed to have the upper hand in terms of the pace of play and generating chances, but not having Heiskanen and Robertson certainly contributed to that.

I want to see what this team does when/if it gets its full complement of players back.

With Robertson and Heiskanen that is the deepest team in the league on paper.

Let’s get into more thoughts as the second round is set to begin on Tuesday night, including Connor Hellebuyck’s playoff struggles, the performance of Edmonton’s secondary players and the Eastern Conference field.