
The 27-year-old Finland native doesn't dwell on what went wrong in a loss — he learns from it and moves on.
After two consecutive losses and being held scoreless for the last three games, Mikko Rantanen said he just has to reset and move on in order to be mentally prepared for the next game.
"You try to learn from the games you play. and when you go through a slump a little bit — takes mental toughness that's one thing," Rantanen said. "You can't go down on yourself because then it's over. Got to try to reset sometimes. You get frustrated but you can't let that get into your game because then it's hard to come back from that."
The 27-year-old Finn manages a positive attitude to focus on his job and trying to win games. His energy can be felt in the room and on the ice.
"Takes a lot of mental side to try to reset for every game. I don't really switch too much — you to try to learn more like what can you do better to maybe get the puck more and be more effective. You got to try to get chances," Rantanen said. "That's one thing when you go slump, like this. Just try to get to the net and try to get close to the net. And when you get chances, eventually it's gonna go in — just gotta stick with it and not frustrated."
Rantanen's scoring drought isn't for lack of effort — he had his second-most shots in the 5-2 loss to the Philadelphia Flyers but didn't manage to get on the scoresheet.
You gotta just stick with it. You can't fold, you can't quit because nothing is going your way," the Avalanche forward said. "And then sometimes when you're on a hot streak sometimes you don't even play that well and then you get two goals off your ass basically. It goes like that sometimes."
There were at least two or three chances Rantanen had in the Flyers game that should have gone in the net but Carter Hart robbed him.
"You try to learn from the last game and then you got to watch it. You can't be thinking about the past too much. You know, because tonight is again, a new chance to play a good game."
Head coach Jared Bednar moved Rantanen to the center position in the Flyers game but he moved around throughout the game. As the team continues to work through its rough patch, Rantanen will eventually get rewarded for his hard work.