Mikko Rantanen Is Making Me Eat Crow Because He Might Win The Stanley Cup By Himself

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Mikko Rantanen, I'm sorry.

When all the trade drama saw Colorado shipping the Finnish forward to Carolina and then the Canes flipping him to Dallas, who signed him to a mega deal, I thought there was no way he was going to live up to his highs in Colorado.

Well, I've just ordered a big heaping helping of crow on Uber Eats for lunch because, I swear, Mikko Rantanen might turn out to be the first guy to win the Stanley Cup on his own.

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After dropping what will go down as one of the most remarkable Game 7 performances in NHL history — honestly, maybe even sports history full-stop — in which he scored a hat-trick in the final 12 minutes of regulation to send his old teammates to their lake cottages for the summer, Rantanen unloaded an encore performance against the Winnipeg Jets that might be just as impressive.

What exactly did he do after that Game 7 hatty?

For that, I'd like to turn things over to music producer/jetski afficianado DJ Khaled. 

Oh, DJ!

Thanks, DJ! Feel free to go back to driving a golf cart with your shirt off and/or creating beautiful music with a guitar given to you by Bob Marley's family…

You heard the man: Rantanen unloaded another hat-trick in a single period.

Here's the first to even things up after Nino Niederreiter opened the scoring in the second period.

Then the second to take the lead:

And finally, the third of the period, which proved to be the game-winner:

Mark Scheifele — who was back in action for Winnipeg after missing the end of their opening round series against the St. Louis Blues — scored to bring the Jets within one, but they ended up falling to Rantanen (and the Stars, I guess) 3-2.

This made Rantanen the first player in NHL history to record multiple single-period hat tricks in a single postseason.

What a run he's on right now. The Stars are playing well across the board as well, with Jake Oettinger in net making sure to keep the opposing offense to a minimum.

However, Rantanen is the guy right now — "Him" as the kids say — and he's going to be a popular guy in Dallas.

How popular? Well, here's a great line (that I'm very jealous I didn't think of) from TNT's Liam McHugh that sums it up.

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Matt is a University of Central Florida graduate and a long-suffering Philadelphia Flyers fan living in Orlando, Florida. He can usually be heard playing guitar, shoe-horning obscure quotes from The Simpsons into conversations, or giving dissertations to captive audiences on why Iron Maiden is the greatest band of all time.