Dallas Stars playoff morning after: A nice moment for the Finnish Mafia

The Dallas Stars opened the Western Conference Final with a dramatic 6-3 win in Game 1 on Wednesday.

The Stars trailed 3-1 after 40 minutes before scoring thrice on the power play to take the lead, which Sam Nestler has explored here for DLLS.

Esa Lindell closed out the scoring with an empty net goal from the Stars defensive zone.

As Robert Tiffin noted on Twitter, all five of the Stars Finnish players were on the ice for Lindell’s goal.

Cool moment on the Esa Lindell empty-netter, with all five Finns out there for it. Just dudes having fun together. pic.twitter.com/ZrSyLjPrPm

— Robert Tiffin (@RobertTiffin) May 22, 2025

It’s a pretty cool moment for the Stars “Finnish Mafia,” — consisting of Lindell, Miro Heiskanen, Roope Hintz, Mikael Granlund, and Mikko Rantanen — it’s also an exclamation point on the rarity of Stars coach Pete DeBoer putting all five together on the ice at the same time.

In the four games since Heiskanen returned from injury, the complete Finnish Mafia has only been on the ice together for 1 minute, 43 seconds with 50 of those seconds coming late last night in Game 1.

It’s not a bad thing, it’s actually been the best deployment of those players with Lindell working so well with Cody Ceci, but it is a slight bummer for me as a storyteller. It’s hard to compare the Stars “Finnish Mafia” to the famed “Russian Five,” — Sergei Fedorov, Vladimir Konstantinov, Slava Kozlov, Slava Fetisov, and Igor Larionov — that the Detroit Red Wings deployed as a unit at times between 1995 and 1997.

The Russian Five have their own Wikipedia page and an entire book dedicated to them which is largely due to the socio-economic climate they overcame at the time, it’s really a cool story of espionage, and also the unfortunate accident that ended the career of Konstantinov.

Of course, the Finnish Mafia can’t be compared to the Red Wings’ Russian Five — not in cultural impact or historical weight. That was a story of defection, Cold War intrigue, and sadly eventual tragedy. But from a purely on-ice perspective? It’d still be fun to see the Stars lean into that identity a little more often.

Call it the dumb musings of a dumb sportswriter, but it be nice to have something to be poetic about when it comes to the Stars ties to Finland all playing out, all at once, even just for the occasional shift. A nice nod to Finland, the Stars, and five players vital to their Stanley Cup aspirations.

We probably won’t get that, which is why it’s nice to have moments like we did with Lindell’s empty-net goal in Game 1.