DALLAS — Just after 9 p.m. Thursday, as the Dallas Stars and Colorado Avalanche crossed into the second minute of the third period at American Airlines Center, the result of this Western Conference heavyweight bout diminished greatly in significance for one side. The Stars led the Avalanche 3-2 at that point and would extend the lead to 4-2 before falling 5-4 in overtime. All of that — the competitive, exciting nature of games between these two Central Division foes, another blown lead by the Stars and the joy of a potential seven-game set between the two teams in the spring — should have driven the conversation in the immediate aftermath.
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Instead, the status of superstar defenseman Miro Heiskanen took precedence.
Heiskanen was trailing Colorado’s Miles Wood, who’d made somewhat of a habit of spearheading dangerous scoring opportunities for the Avalanche, moving toward Stars goaltender Scott Wedgewood. After Wood shot the puck and skated off to his right, Heiskanen’s speed and momentum carried him into Wedgewood’s midsection. Heiskanen’s right knee appeared to bend awkwardly, and his entire body was under Wedgewood’s body weight.
Wedgewood got back up and continued his duties in net, a relief to the Stars, who are already down starter Jake Oettinger. Heiskanen skated back to the bench and stayed there, and he looked like he was trying to prepare to come back on the ice for the next shift. Instead, Heiskanen was escorted down the tunnel with Stars athletic trainer Dave Zeis. A little while later, just as Tyler Seguin put the Stars up 4-2, Zeis emerged from the tunnel to rejoin the team on the bench. Heiskanen did not come out with him. Stars coach Pete DeBoer said after the game there was no update but that there would be more clarity on the severity, or lack thereof, of the injury and perhaps a timeline for return following more testing.
“You feel it everywhere,” DeBoer said of Heiskanen’s absence. “He impacts the game like (Cale) Makar does for them. Every time they’re on the ice, they control the game. We’ll miss him in all of those areas, but other guys have to step up and seize opportunities. There are injuries everywhere in the league. You’ve got to deal with it and keep moving forward.”
Heiskanen had a physically taxing evening at the AAC on Thursday. Earlier in the game, he was the victim of a painful high-sticking penalty that resulted in a four-minute power play for the Stars. Dallas scored one goal on that power play, Heiskanen tallying the secondary assist. But it was the third-period friendly fire that took Heiskanen out of the game, a rare occurrence on a few levels. Heiskanen is not a player who misses games for bumps and bruises; it usually takes something tough for Heiskanen to miss time. Secondly, Heiskanen entered Thursday night fifth in the NHL in average time on ice. Only seven players in the league had more total time on ice than Heiskanen.
“Obviously, it’s a huge hole,” Matt Duchene said. “He’s one of the best defensemen in the league. You lose him, it’s tough, but I think we’ve got the guys back there to step up. It’s next-man-up mentality.”
Wedgewood gets run over by Miro Heiskanenpic.twitter.com/h7g8plDAMP
— HighlightHarbor (@HighlightHarbor) January 5, 2024
It’s watching the implementation of that mentality that led to the biggest concern for those watching from afar. To be clear, there’s no need for doom and gloom at this point over Heiskanen’s status. Until further testing provides answers, it’s every bit as possible Heiskanen is in the lineup Saturday against the Nashville Predators as it is he misses any time. But watching a full period of Stars hockey without Heiskanen, and then an overtime period in which the Stars had to resort to a three-forward approach, something they only did out of desperation last season, was a harsh reminder of the team’s situation on the blue line with just a little more than two months remaining before the trade deadline.
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Thomas Harley is a very good player and can bring some of what Heiskanen brings. He can fill in some of the roles, too, such as quarterbacking a power-play unit or leading an overtime trio. But behind Harley, the cupboard is essentially bare. Sure, there’s Nils Lundkvist sitting in the press box as a healthy scratch, and his insertion into the lineup will bring some juice with the puck and another decent power-play quarterback option, as he’s done fairly regularly when he is in the lineup. But is it really logical to expect that a player who has hardly earned the trust to merely be in the lineup would now be an option with the game on the line in open-ice overtime?
And if not Lundkvist, then who? Esa Lindell? Jani Hakanpää? Ryan Suter? Joel Hanley?
That’s it. Those are the options. The concern isn’t about overtime, something that is a fairly occasional happening, although the Stars are certainly making a habit of testing the waters again this season. Lindell and Hakanpää are most known for their penalty-killing roles. Hanley is an established seventh defenseman. Suter doesn’t have much left in the tank. When Heiskanen is in the lineup, eating up half a game each night, the issues don’t always have to be confronted. When Heiskanen’s out and you’re left with one quality option, one untrustworthy option and four players who aren’t options to do much with the puck, the issue starts to stare at you in the eyes like a human being staring at the solar eclipse.
The other consideration with Harley is that the Stars have been so careful with his development, not wanting to rush him into power-play duties so as to not undo his meteoric defensive progressions. Their approach to what they’d have to do with him in relying so heavily on him goes in the face of what they’ve shown they’d like to do thus far. Perhaps Harley is ready for it, but it sure does go from zero to 100 real quick when there aren’t other options to distribute the load with.
Without Heiskanen, the Stars also don’t have a formidable defensive pairing. Heiskanen and Harley aren’t a regular defensive pairing, but coming into Thursday night, they had played 99 minutes together, according to MoneyPuck. Their 71.4 expected goals percentage was not only tops on the team but No. 1 in the league. The next-best pairing by that metric on the Stars was Lindell and Hakanpää, with Heiskanen and Suter checking in at third on the team. There’s a fairly steep drop-off after that. Harley is a great player, but a pairing requires two, and the Stars don’t really have a second.
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Again, this isn’t to freak out about Heiskanen’s absence — yet. If he does miss extended time, there will be time to panic about that. Heiskanen is the best, most indispensable player on the Stars. The point here is that even with Heiskanen, the margin for error is so thin on the back end. The Stars can preach a next-man-up mentality — as players, that is the right mentality to have — but there’s no “next man” who can fill Heiskanen’s skates. Even if Harley is viewed as a formidable temporary replacement, which isn’t an absurd notion, the Stars don’t have anybody close who could fill Harley’s shoes as a second reliable game-altering presence on the blue line.
For the second time this season, the Stars matched up well against the Avalanche. For the second time this season, they built a multigoal lead on Colorado. Those are the positive signs, ones that shouldn’t be easily dismissed. Thursday, the spotlight was on the Stars’ biggest flaw. That shouldn’t be dismissed, either.
(Photo of Miro Heiskanen on the ice with Scott Wedgewood on top of him during the third period Thursday night against the Avalanche: Jerome Miron / USA Today)