The NHL provides two historic Game 7s over the weekend

Photo Credit: James Carey Lauder/Imagn Images

This weekend’s slate of NHL Games showed why fans refer to Game Seven as the best two words in sports. With historic individual performances and record-breaking goals, Saturday and Sunday’s games were two of the most electric and insane Game 7s the sport had ever seen.

On Saturday, the most competitive series of the first round came to a close with a pivotal seventh game in Dallas. The Stars hosted the Colorado Avalanche, with both teams having won one game on the road. The Avalanche opened the series with a 5-1 win in Dallas, and the Stars responded in Game 3 with a 2-1 overtime victory in Denver.

With how good these two teams are on paper, there has been a consensus among NHL fans that whoever wins this series would represent the Western Conference in the Stanley Cup Finals. The Stars were without their top forward, Jason Robertson, and top defenseman, Miro Heiskanen, for the entire first round, giving the Avalanche the upper hand.

The Avalanche dominated Game 1, but the series went back-and-forth after that, with the Stars winning Games 2 and 3 in overtime and the Avalanche forcing Game 7 with a 7-4 win at home. The first two and a half periods of Game 7 were reminiscent of Game 1. The Avalanche took the lead in the second period and extended it 31 seconds into the final frame. All was going smoothly for the Avalanche, who had won just one playoff round since winning the Stanley Cup in 2022.

It all fell apart for the Avalanche when Mikko Rantanen single-handedly eliminated his former team with a third-period performance for the ages.

On January 24th, the Avalanche traded Rantanen to the Carolina Hurricanes. Despite scoring 681 points in 10 years with the Avalanche, the two sides could not agree to a contract extension. With the Avalanche not wanting to lose one of their best players for free in free agency, they decided to trade him out of the conference and acquire a similar player for cheap. The main player the Avalanche received was forward Martin Necas, who was almost a point-per-game player in his 30 regular-season games with his new team.

The deal was working out for the Avalanche, but not so much for the Hurricanes. Rantanen struggled in 13 games, registering just six points. When it became clear the 28-year-old Finnish winger wasn’t going to re-sign in Carolina, the Hurricanes traded him to the Dallas Stars, who immediately signed him to an eight-year contract.

This all came full circle when it was confirmed that Rantanen and his former team would meet in the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. Rantanen had just one point in the first four games of the series, but came alive in the final three, especially Game 7. In Game 5, he had a goal and two assists, leading his team to victory. In Game 6, despite the loss, Rantanen had a goal and three assists.

It was his Game 7 performance that will go down in the history books. Down 2-0 with just over 12 minutes left, Rantanen ripped a shot from the top of the slot off the crossbar and in to give the Stars life. With 6:14 to go in the third, he entered the zone one-on-three, beat all of his defenders, wrapped the puck around the net, and banked it in off the skate of Samuel Girard. Rantanen tied the game on the power play with a terrific individual goal, showing why his former team should have paid him what he desired.

Rantanen recorded an assist on the game-winning goal, a power-play tally by Wyatt Johnston with 3:56 left in the third period. Johnston, who is 21 years old, has scored in all three Game 7s he has played in. Rantanen sealed the game and series win with an empty-net goal for the hat trick with three seconds remaining.

Rantanen’s all-time performance was one for the record books. He became the first player in NHL history with a third period, Game 7 hat trick and became the first player in league history with back-to-back games with four-point periods. Not to mention, he did all of this to eliminate his former team. Funny enough, Rantanen scored a hat trick in the Avalanche’s first game of the season on October 9, 2024. Now he scored a hat trick in their final game of the season, with a different team.

If Saturday’s Game 7 wasn’t crazy enough, Sunday’s Game 7 would blow it out of the water.

Heading into Game 7 between the Winnipeg Jets and St. Louis Blues, the home team had won every game. All three of the games in Winnipeg were decided by one or two goals. The three games in St. Louis were decided by five, four, and three goals.

A lot had been made about Connor Hellebuyck’s struggles in the series, with the Jets goaltender getting pulled in all three road games. One of the best regular-season goalies transforms into one of the worst statistical goalies in the playoffs. The American had a poor start to Game 7, allowing two goals within the first eight minutes.

The Jets would get one back on the power play thanks to a fantastic redirect by Cole Perfetti, but the Blues regained their three-goal advantage with 35 seconds left in the second period. The Jets had only won one Game 7 (2018) since moving back to Winnipeg in 2012, and it looked like that number would stay the same.

With less than two minutes left and the goalie pulled, a lucky bounce would break the Jets’ way. Vladislav Namestnikov centered a puck from the far circle that deflected off the stick of Ryan Suter and in. The 40-year-old defenseman was down on a knee trying to block the pass and inadvertently knocked it into his own net. The Blues had a chance to end the game with an empty-netter, but Pavel Buchnevich fired the puck just over the crossbar.

That miss would come back to hurt the Blues. As time dwindled away, the puck was pinned in the near corner with no sign of movement. The Jets were able to dig it free with 7.5 seconds left, setting up Nikolaj Ehlers for a shot from the near point that he fanned on. Luckily for Ehlers, the puck came right back to him, and instead of shooting again, he whipped a cross-ice pass to Kyle Connor in the far circle. Connor threw the puck toward the net, and it was deflected in by Perfetti with 1.6 seconds left.

Perfetti’s goal at 59:57 is tied for the second-latest game-tying goal in Stanley Cup Playoffs history and is the latest game-tying goal in Game 7 history, topping the record set by Matt Cooke in 2004 with the Vancouver Canucks (59:54).

The goal sent Canada Life Centre into absolute pandemonium and the game into overtime.

No goals were scored in the first overtime period, with both Hellebuyck and Jordan Binnington saving their teams on multiple occasions. The game-winning goal wouldn’t come until there were less than four minutes left in the second overtime, making this the third-longest Game 7 in NHL history. It was Jets captain Adam Lowry who played hero. The St. Louis native had Neal Pionk’s point shot deflect off his leg and in. Lowry joined Steve Yzerman (1996, Detroit) as the second captain in league history to score an overtime goal in Game 7, per NHL Public Relations.

In the franchise’s first-ever Game 7 at home, the Jets became just the fourth team to overcome a multi-goal deficit in the final two minutes of a playoff game to win. They were the first team to do so since the Boston Bruins in 2013, per NHL PR.

After two two-goal comebacks in the NHL’s Game 7s this past weekend, the league witnessed something incredibly rare. Per former NHLer Dominic Moore, there had only been three two-goal comebacks in the third period of a Game 7 in the first 106 years of the league. The NHL added two more to that list in the span of two days.

The historic individual performances and record-breaking goals we saw this weekend show why playoff hockey is the best. After a tantalizing first round, fans can only hope that the rest of the playoffs bring more of the same.