Mikko Rantanen and the Stars are crashing the party again! Just days after Connor Hellebuyck threw down a brick wall with 22 slick saves and Nikolaj Ehlers lit it up with two third-period goals to keep the Jets breathing with that 4-0 shutout in Game 5, boom! Now we’re back in the fire. The Stars are hunting redemption, brushing off that L like it never happened. And right now? With the third period rolling on, it’s a tense 1-1 standoff, like two cowboys in a hockey-style showdown.

But, hold up, while the puck’s flying, eyes started drifting somewhere else on the ice. Yep, all eyes were locked on Mikko Rantanen, who had fans doing a double-take after a player was seen limping off, and now whispers of a possible NHL suspension are floating in the breeze. The Stars? Oh, they’re lowkey sweatin’ it. Between the tied scoreboard and the drama swirling around Mikko, this one’s got more plot twists than a Netflix binge.

B/R Open Ice just dropped some heat on X mid-game, and yep, it’s got the timeline buzzing. They posted a clip of Jets’ star Josh Morrissey making his way off the rink, limping heavy on one leg, straight to the locker room in the second period. The moment had fans clutching their jerseys. How’d it go down? It all went down in the second period when the two collided near the boards. Mikko hit the ice first, but as he toppled backwards, he seemed to accidentally pulled Morrissey down with him… and that’s when it got ugly.

Morrissey’s left leg took the brunt of Rantanen’s full weight, and it bent in a way legs absolutely should not bend—one of those moments you feel in your soul. The pain was written all over his face as he tried to make it back to the bench, clearly in agony. And when it was time to leave the ice? He couldn’t even walk. Trainers had to carry him to the locker room.

The caption on the post? “Morrissey headed to the Jets locker room after getting tangled up with Rantanen.” And now, while there’s no official call on it just yet, the whispers are getting louder; there could be a suspension in the air. Nothing’s set in stone, but the vibe’s a lil’ tense… like, keep-your-eyes-glued kinda tense.

The D-man had already missed Game 1 of the series as he was nursing an upper-body injury from Game 7 against the St. Louis Blues. And it looks like he might be done for the night, or worse, longer. Just a brutal, brutal blow for the Jets. And while the game has now gone to overtime with 1-1, here are the possibilities of IF Mikko could be suspended.

Will Mikko Rantanen get suspended?

Well, this is going to be tricky. While the whole thing looked accidental and Rantanen went down on the ice first, his leg did cause Morrissey to lose his footing on the ice. And that could get him in trouble for slew-footing. Rule no. 52 of Section 6 in the 2024-25 NHL Official Rules is pretty clear on this: “Slew-footing is the act of a player using his leg or foot to knock or kick an opponent’s feet from under him, or pushes an opponent’s upper body backward with an arm or elbow, and at the same time with a forward motion of his leg, knocks or kicks the
opponent’s feet from under him, causing him to fall violently to the ice.” And guess what? The offence calls for a match penalty. But then again, the play didn’t draw any calls from the referee. But that doesn’t mean Rantanen is off the hook just yet.

Now, there aren’t any specified fines or suspensions for slew-footing. But if the whole thing looks a little too real in hindsight, the League Commissioner can step in and slap the offender in question with a suspension and/or a big fat fine. And it’s not like Rantanen would need to look too far back into the past to realize that he isn’t out of the woods yet.

Case in point: The Florida Panthers. While Matthew Tkachuk escaped supplementary action for his bone-crushing hit on Tampa Bay Lightning’s Jake Guentzel in Game 3 of the Round 1 playoff series, his teammate, Aaron Ekblad, wasn’t so lucky. Just when it looked like Ekblad would go scot-free for his hit on Brandon Hagel in Game 4 (Yeah, not even some time in the penalty box), the NHL Department of Player Safety stepped in and handed him a two-game suspension. So while Mikko Rantanen’s move might not have gotten the whistle just yet, he might wanna keep his phone close, ‘cause the league might just be calling.