Dallas Stars playoff morning after: Mikko Rantanen’s minutes a lesson in quality over quantity

Game 4 was all about Mikael Granlund.

The Dallas Stars first mid-season trade acquisition delivered a hat trick in a 3-1 victory, pushing the series to the potential brink in Game 5.

It was also Mikko Rantanen’s 11th playoff game with the Stars, matching the number he played last season with the Colorado Avalanche.

In 11 playoff games with Colorado last spring, Rantanen had 14 points, four goals and 10 assists, before Colorado’s season came to an end in Game 6, fittingly, against the Stars.

This spring, now playing for the Stars, Rantanen has 19 points in 11 playoff games, leading all players in goals and points, while being tied for second with 10 assists.

The numbers are notable and memorable because of what Rantanen has done, but today I want to take a look at a different number, the one that’s been heavily decreased compared to last spring.

With the Avalanche last spring Rantanen was averaging 24:03 per game in time on ice.

This spring, even with the Stars double-shifting Rantanen to up his usage compared to other forwards, he’s averaging 19:58.

It’s more bang for buck, time-wise, with a four-minute reduction in role.

It’s also reflective of how things differed between the Stars and Avalanche, ideology wise, when it comes to roles and balanced lines.

With Colorado this season, Rantanen was averaging 22:30 per game in the regular season. That’s in line with his typical usage in Colorado, where he logged 22:54 on average the prior season and 22:13 the season before that.

In Dallas, in the regular season, Rantanen’s time on ice dropped to 19:07 per game, even less than the 19:49 he averaged during his Carolina Hurricanes cameo, not because he was a lesser player, but because no forward plays that much in Pete DeBoer’s system.

In addition to the human side effects, moving from Denver to Raleigh and then Dallas in a short time frame, and the hockey system differences, Rantanen was adjusting to a new reality, minute wise, that probably took some time to get comfortable with.

I’ve spoken to many NHL coaches about this and I find the minutes and usage to be fascinating. While there’s not a hard-and-fast rule, each player, in my view, seems to have an ideal minute number, the one where maximum performance can be reached.

Let’s use Lian Bichsel as an example here. Bichsel is hammering opponents this postseason, he throws his body around more than any other Stars player and in doing so he’s inflicting damage, not just on opponents, but also on himself. It’s easier to do this when playing 12 to 14 minutes (or just 7:50 like last night), than it would be to do it with 23 or 24 minutes.

Esa Lindell isn’t nearly as physical as Bischel, but there’s also an understanding in Lindell’s game — particularly on the penalty kill — of how to maximize minutes, how to exert the best performance without wasting the tank for the future minutes to come.

The same lesson here applies to forwards and brings us back to Rantanen. In Colorado, playing with Nathan MacKinnon, who is better than any forward the Stars could pair him with, Rantanen was able to ease into games if needed. Minutes mattered, but at the end of the day that top line was going to be taking every other shift by the end of the third period in any close game.

In Dallas, Rantanen’s minutes become a more valuable commodity, and whether it’s coincidence or causation, Rantanen has seized the meaning of that. There’s five less minutes per game for the forward than he’s typically used to in the playoffs, but it makes those other 19 minutes matter that much more.

I think there’s also some credit here to be given to DeBoer for breaking from some of his traditional thinking on this. The Stars typically like that fourth line to be clean and easy, they like things rolling, but his willingness to sneak in extra Rantanen shifts has been noticeable.

In Game 4, Rantanen had 27 shifts at even strength, six more than the Stars next forward, which pushed Rantanen’s ice time, with the Stars going 11-7, to 23:49 last night — the most he’s had in regulation this postseason, but still below his average last spring with Colorado.

Quantity over quality, right? That’s kind of the Rantanen story throughout the trade and following success, the Stars were willing to cash in on multiple picks and an exciting young player, multiple assets, for one higher quality one. Now instead of working Rantanen into the ground, overly changing everything to adjust to his old minutes, the Stars and Rantanen have found a new happy medium that seems to be working for both.