This is my third straight day of writing about Mikko Rantanen. I’m still trying to do his Game 7 performance justice, place it in the perspective it deserves and I feel — sort of like Colorado — I keep coming up short.

Since the Stanley Cup win in 2022, the Avalanche have won just one playoff series and lost two Game 7s in the process. With MacKinnon and Cale Makar at the height of their primes, Colorado has to find a way to get back over the playoff hump for another deep run.

It wasn’t a handshake line at the end of this remarkable seven-game series for Mikko Rantanen. It was a hug line.