Growing up, I despised the Dallas Stars because of the heated rivalry they had with the Edmonton Oilers in the late ’90s and early 2000s. It always felt like a ‘David vs. Goliath’ scenario, with the Oilers as the underdogs, as the two teams met six times in the playoffs over a seven-year span.

Edmonton won only one of those series, and the Stars had such great players who seemed like they could burn the Oilers at will — guys like Mike Modano, Joe Nieuwendyk, Jere Lehtinen, and Sergei Zubov.

Fast forward almost two decades, and the Oilers have a new twist on the old ‘David vs. Goliath’ tale, with a “Mc” now in front of the “David” and they’re no longer the scrappy underdogs they once were against Dallas.

With the Oilers and Stars set to battle in the Western Conference Final for the second straight year, this rivalry has officially turned up a couple of notches again. Edmonton came out on top last season, but Dallas will be hungry for revenge, and they definitely should not be taken lightly. That said, below we highlight three Dallas players to watch for who could make an impact in the upcoming Western Conference Final series between these two powerhouses.

If there was one NHL player who raised his stock substantially during the past regular season and has continued to do so through two rounds of the playoffs, it’s Stars defenceman Thomas Harley.

A former first-round draft pick from the 2019 NHL Draft, Harley produced 47 points last regular season but managed only four points in 19 playoff games in 2024. Yet this season, Harley was tasked with taking on a bigger role when Miro Heiskanen required knee surgery midway through the year, and the 23-year-old answered the call and then some, averaging 23 minutes a night while getting time on both the power play and penalty kill.

He recorded 50 points in the regular season and was a last-minute addition to Team Canada at the Four Nations Face-off. There, he played two games, recorded an assist, and admittedly, with how steady he was in helping Canada capture gold, I thought, ‘This kid is a gamer.’ Also, here’s a fun fact about him — while Harley grew up in Syracuse, NY, he has ties to Edmonton. His parents were born in Alberta’s capital, and his father played for the University of Alberta Golden Bears in the late 1980s and ’90s.

That said, heading into the series against the Oilers, Harley is likely the most confident he’s ever been. He’s second on the Stars in points (11) and he averaged just under 25 minutes a night in the series against the Jets and recorded six points, including two in the final game, where he scored the overtime winner to send the Stars to the Western Conference Final and Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman said during the broadcast afterward that Harley has emerged as a number one defenceman in the league.

Additionally, Stars head coach Pete DeBoer praised his young D-man after he scored the game-winning goal against the Jets, saying:

All things considered, Team Canada is lucky that they may have found a steady young D-man in Harley for the future. For the Oilers, though, the blueliner is a bit of a concern, as this upgraded version of Thomas Harley is a big difference from the last time these teams battled in the Western Conference Final last season.

However, like all young players, he has some flaws. According to Natural Stat Trick, he leads the NHL in giveaways (23) this postseason, which the Oilers will want to exploit by pressing him hard with their forecheck in hopes of forcing turnovers.

If any team can compete with the Oilers’ depth, it’s the Stars, and centerman Roope Hintz is someone to keep an eye on in the upcoming series.

He was fifth on Dallas in the regular season, posting 67 points, and he’s currently third on the Stars in postseason points with 10. Overall, it’s been an up-and-down playoffs for him — he recorded seven points in the first round series against the Colorado Avalanche, but only tallied three points in the series versus the Winnipeg Jets. That said, he was buzzing in Game 6, holding a 6-1 edge in high-danger chances at 5-on-5.

Still, despite the ups and downs, he remains a dangerous player to keep an eye out for. He’s currently the Stars’ top-line centerman, playing on a line with the red-hot Mikko Rantanen, and one thing the Oilers have to watch out for is his speed, and he also has a heck of a shot.

According to NHL Edge data, Hintz’s top speed so far this postseason was clocked at 23.67 MPH, and he has recorded 68 speed bursts over 20 MPH, both ranking in the 99th percentile in the NHL. Moreover, his hardest shot in the playoffs was clocked at 95.09 MPH, which is also in the 99th percentile.

Hintz also makes an impact at both ends of the rink, and his line with Rantanen and Mikael Granlund, who recorded a hat trick in Game 4 against Winnipeg, has been highly effective. At 5v5 this postseason, they’ve outscored opponents 7-2 over in just over 120 minutes of ice time. Also worth noting, the centerman missed Games 1 and 2 against Edmonton in last season’s playoffs, but this time, Dallas will start the series with him in the lineup for round three.

If Mikko Rantanen ever considered changing his name, he might choose “Mikko Tulikuuma,” which means ‘red hot’ in Finnish — because that’s exactly how he’s played this postseason.

Dallas’ trade deadline acquisition from the Carolina Hurricanes has been the most productive player in the playoffs, leading the entire NHL with 19 points (9G, 10A) in 13 games. This includes a storybook Game 7 against his former team, the Colorado Avalanche, where he scored three goals in the third period, becoming the first player in NHL history to record a hat trick in the third period of a Game 7 in the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

He recorded another hat trick against the Jets in Game 1 and produced another three-point night in Game 3, showing just how explosive he can be when he’s on a roll.

In addition, Rantanen is fifth in the league in shots on goal (39) but leads the NHL with nine goals this postseason. Taking a deeper dive into the goals he’s scored in the playoffs, according to NHL Edge data, three have been scored from right in front of the net, while four have come from mid-range near the slot, where he ranks in the 99th percentile in the league.

Yet, despite how well Rantanen is playing, based on where he’s scored his goals from so far, it seems the key to shutting him down is to simply play him tough in front of the net. What that looks like for the Oilers is keeping their heads on a swivel, boxing him out, and tying up sticks in the slot, much like we saw them do in Game 5 last series against the Vegas Golden Knights, where they put on a defensive clinic en route to a 1-0 overtime win.

Playing him physically is crucial, and I’m looking at someone like Jake Walman, who landed a beautiful open-ice hit on Rantanen last March, to set the tone early in the series.

Without question, Rantanen is the Stars’ top player to watch to make the most impact in the upcoming series. That said, last playoffs, when they were knocked out by the Oilers in six games, they lacked a true difference-maker — the kind of impact player who can turn a game around in a single shift. Now, with the 6-foot-4, 215-pound highly skilled Finn, Dallas has exactly that, and the Oilers will need to be locked in defensively to neutralize him.