There's nothing like a little Throwback Thursday photo for this article. The Dallas Stars have two players who have played with the Avalanche. Mikko Rantanen and Matt Duchene both played with the Avalanche before the franchise moved on from them. There's nothing wrong with getting younger. But the fact that they are both playing against the Avalanche in this playoff series should be concerning. Duchene and Rantanen can potentially melt the Avalanche and send them into the offseason.
Both Duchene and Rantanen came to the Stars in different ways. The Stars signed Duchene a few off-seasons ago when the Nashville Predators bought out his contract. Rantanen was recently acquired when the Carolina Hurricanes traded him to the Stars for Logan Stankoven and some draft picks. Duchene and Rantanen have one goal coming into this series: getting revenge against their former team.
What gives me hope that Duchene and Rantanen can melt the Avalanche that started yesterday at practice. Dallas Morning News Stars Reporter Lia Assimakopoulos tweeted that Duchene mentioned the Stars need to stop testing the waters and win game 1 tomorrow night. It seems like Duchene and Seguin are tired of losing in the first game of each playoff series the last couple of years. That should provide some extra motivation heading into game 1 later tonight.
Rantanen has an entirely different reason for wanting to eliminate the Avalanche in the first round of the playoffs. The reason is that the Avalanche traded him after he gave the Avalanche a high starting point on his contract extension. The Avalanche didn't even want to pay him that high, so he was traded to the Hurricanes shortly after Rantanen said he would negotiate with them. The team that developed him gave up on him when they could have talked things out for him to stay in Colorado.
Now that Rantanen has had time to settle down and get through his first trip back to Colorado, he should be more relaxed playing his former team. He's one of the players, along with Duchene who, needs to step up in this series if they want to advance to the second round against the winner of the St. Louis Blues vs. Winnipeg Jets series. The only way the Stars will advance is for other players to step up. That's why Duchene and Rantanen need to team up and send the Avalanche packing back to Cabo for the summer. They could be the one-two punch Colorado will dread in this series.