Congratulations to Team USA on their first gold medal in 46 years. What a wild ride it was. If you’re an American hockey fan, congrats to you too. Between the emotion, the early mornings, and the amount of food and beverages we consumed, it wasn’t easy. So, great job. But the Olympics are now over, and just like that, we’re back to the daily grind of the NHL season, and a sprint to the finish.
Related: A Dallas Stars Fan’s Guide to the 2026 Winter Olympics
With 25 games left, the Dallas Stars have a record of 34-14-9 (77 points) and sit comfortably in third place in the Central Division. They are one point behind the Minnesota Wild, six points behind the Colorado Avalanche, and have a healthy 13-point cushion over the first wild-card spot. Their playoff position is all but cemented, but that doesn’t mean the final month and change will be a cake walk. But enough chit chat.
The Stars Bring Six Medals Back to Texas
This was my first time watching the Olympics as a writer, and it was a really cool experience. I’m usually rooting for my country, but this time, there was added interest in the Stars players who were representing their countries.
Seven players from Dallas were in Italy, and six of them brought home medals. Jake Oettinger won gold for the United States, and Thomas Harley won silver with Canada. Mikko Rantanen, Esa Lindell, Roope Hintz, and Miro Heiskanen all won bronze with Team Finland, while Radek Faksa and Team Czechia came one goal short of beating the Canadians in the quarter-final.
Rantanen led his Stars teammates with two goals and six points. Heiskanen had two goals and five points, Hintz and Harley each had one goal and four points, Lindell had three points, and Faksa had two points.
“It’s great for every player who goes over there,” Stars coach Glen Gulutzan said. “It’s an experience at the highest level, and that should help you get better.”
Stars are Limping Out Of the Break
As the tournament went on, and in its wake, reports of injuries have trickled out of Milan. Rantanen sustained a lower-body injury, which caused him to miss Team Finland’s 6-1 win over Team Slovakia in the bronze medal game, and he is out indefinitely.
The Stars are hopeful he will be back before the end of the regular season. “He will be back before the end of the regular season from all the indications we are getting, but he’s going to be out for … it’s not days,” Gulutzan said on Tuesday. “He had a doctor’s appointment with our docs yesterday, and he is going to be… it won’t be one or two games, it will be, let’s start at two weeks and then see where it goes from there. So he will be out for some time.”
There is no replacing Rantanen. Not only is he the best player on the team, but he is also one of the best players in the world. But this isn’t the worst news. Yes, they want him on the ice and healthy, but the Stars are firmly in a playoff spot and have the talent and the depth to keep their place in the division or maybe even pass the Wild for the second spot. If they want Rantanen to be available for the playoffs, maybe it’s not the worst thing to have him rest and heal right now.
“You can’t replace a player like him,” Gulutzan added. “But you can mitigate the loss for a bit, and that’s what we’re going to try and do with different guys. There’s only a few of those superstars in the league, and they are hard to replace.”
Faksa is the other notable Olympic-related injury after suffering an upper-body injury during Czechia’s 4-3 overtime loss to Switzerland in the preliminary round. Hintz’s status is in question due to an illness, but if he misses Wednesday’s game against the Seattle Kraken, he should be back by the weekend.
Dallas’s Sprint to the Finish Starts With a Light Jog
Coming out of the break, many teams will be stuck with three games in four nights. Thankfully, that is not the case for the Stars. Dallas next hosts the Kraken tonight and then the Nashville Predators on Saturday. Next week, they will visit the Vancouver Cancuks on Monday and the Calgary Flames on Tuesday, before hosting the Colorado Avalanche on Friday to start a six-game homestand.
The Olympic break has caused chaos in the schedule down the stretch. But the Stars should feel good. Compared to other teams, they drew the lucky straw.
