Let's talk about Miro Heiskanen for a minute
The 24-year-old Dallas Stars defenseman has put together an incredible playoff run.
Miro Heiskanen is one of the best defensemen in the NHL. He is the Stars’ top blueliner, potentially their best player.
Normally, his play flies under the radar, especially to those outside of Dallas. Sometimes that is simply because he makes plays so quickly, if you blink you might miss it.
That has been the case again this season and has carried itself into the Stanley Cup Playoffs. That is, until the past few games.
Heiskanen has 15 points (six goals, nine assists) and a plus-2 rating in 16 playoff games. That is excellent, second to only Evan Bouchard of the Oilers (22 points). He averages 28:08 of ice time per game, second among all skaters to John Carlson (who only played four games in the first round). And he just never looks tired.
But here is where it gets really impressive…
Since being surprised by Miles Wood for the Game 1 overtime winner in the second round against Colorado, Heiskanen has played 228:13 of total ice time over eight games.
In that time, the Stars have gone 6-2, knocking off the Avalanche in Game 6 and taking a 2-1 series lead against the Oilers in the Western Conference Final.
Heiskanen has been on the ice for nine of the Stars’ 29 goals. But far more impressive and important is the fact that he has only been on the ice for ONE goal against over that span.
That goal came in the first period of Game 3 on Monday, when a fadeaway shot by Connor McDavid bounced off the chest of Zach Hyman in the crease.
Here are Heiskanen’s game-by-game stats, beginning with that Game 1 loss to Colorado:
Side note: Nearly 40 minutes in the Game 6 double-overtime win?? He is not human.
Heiskanen has always been effective defensively. Even before he found his offensive stride with 73 points (11 goals, 62 assists) in 2022-23, he was the Stars’ best defensive option. In his first NHL season, he averaged over 23 minutes per game, blocked 71 shots and played all 82 games.
The only negative on his resume from that season was the minus-14 rating he finished with. But Dallas was only plus-8 overall, the lowest goal differential of any playoff team.
The next season, Heiskanen quickly erased that “issue.” Despite the Stars finishing with an even worse plus-3 goal differential, Heiskanen was plus-14 while averaging an extra 40 seconds per game (23:36).
He also bested his previous season by blocking 84 shots and tallying 35 points (eight goals, 27 assists) in only 68 games.
Just look at his progression with each season, especially in the “Corsi-For”, which indicates how often a team controls the puck with that player on the ice. 61% is pretty wicked. Avoiding goals against is pretty easy when your team has the puck far more than they are chasing.
This season, the Espoo, Finland native set career highs in blocks (97), hits (55) and expected plus-minus (19.8), a career low in giveaways (36), and unlocked his feisty side with four more penalty minutes than any other season (36).
Heiskanen has done it all.
How about this block in Game 2?
Add to that the fact that Dallas can now also rely on Esa Lindell (24:58), Thomas Harley (24:07) and Chris Tanev (23:26) to play heavy minutes, while pushing Ryan Suter into a more suitable bottom-paring role, and it is easy to see why Dallas has had so much success.
But here’s the funny thing. Dallas has not been one of the more stingy teams in these playoffs.
Of all 16 playoff teams, the Stars have allowed the second-highest number of goals (38). Only Edmonton has allowed more (43).
Obviously a lot of these numbers are a bit quirky with teams being eliminated after only one round, but it is still surprising, especially when you look at the stats of players like Heiskanen, Tyler Seguin (plus-10), Harley (plus-8), Tanev (plus-6), Johnston (plus-5).
So where are all the goals against coming from?
Well, Joe Pavelski is minus-2 and has only one goal, Craig Smith is minus-2 with no goals, Radek Faksa is minus-1 with one goal and Jason Robertson, Nils Lundkvist, Evgenii Dadonov, and Mason Marchment are all even.
I was actually very surprised to see that Suter was plus-3, sixth among all Dallas skaters.
But the real problem is not with any of the names listed above. In fact, it is not even a problem.
The reality is that Dallas has played three of the toughest and highest-scoring teams in the NHL. Colorado finished with the most goals (304) in the regular season, Edmonton was fourth (294 goals), and Vegas finished 13th without half of their lineup.
In the playoffs, the three clubs were all in the top 10, with Edmonton and Colorado in the top five.
It has just been a weird playoff so far. Teams are making wild comebacks, other teams are winning games they are being completely outplayed in and every night seems to bring a surprise to the hockey world.
I expect nothing less in the rest of this Dallas-Edmonton series, with Game 4 coming tonight from Edmonton.