When Miro Heiskanen went down with a lower body injury in early January, there were justifiable concerns about how the Dallas Stars – and in particular the blue line – would survive the loss of the teams best player.
10 games in, things aren’t so bad.
With Heiskanen on the verge of coming back, the Stars seem to have weathered the storm. Since the overtime loss to the Colorado Avalanche that saw the defender go down hard into his own net, the team has gone on to a 6-3-1 record, a .650 points percentage. To add context, prior to that Colorado loss, the team was 22-10-4, a .667 points percentage.
Pretty impressive, especially if you consider that for much of that time, Dallas was leaning heavily on backup goaltender, Scott Wedgewood.
Icetime
Thomas Harley certainly bore the brunt of the extra time on ice, where his 5×5 time increased almost two minutes. In addition, his power play numbers were up over a minuter and a half and penalty kill time a half minute. Joel Hanley and Nils Lundkvist both added about four minutes to their even strength time, with minor additions to the rest of the defenders – the exception being Ryan Suter, who saw his time decrease by over a minute.
Thomas Harley added first power play duties, with Lundkvist continuing to quarterback the second power play. On the penalty kill, Harley and Hanley ate up Heiskanen’s minute per game, split about evenly. Esa Lindell and Jani Hakanpää continued to eat up the majority of penalty kill minutes.
Pairings
With Heiskanen out, the Stars quit rolling out traditional “top pairs”. Lindell, Hakanpää, Lundkvist and Suter all averaged 16-17 minutes of 5×5 ice time. Harley had top minutes, at just over 18 5×5 minutes per game, with Joel Hanley getting bottom minutes (just over 15 5×5 minutes). The primary way to determine top pair given this parity is by looking at strength of competition. If you do that, Lindell and Hakanpää should be considered top pair, with Suter and Lundkvist taking a 2A pairing to go with Harley and Hanley taking 2B. Harley’s competition, however, was enhanced by taking extra shifts with other partners against stiffer competition.
Looking at shot share and goal data (all courtesy of NaturalStatTrick), its clear that the play of Lindell and Hakanpää suffered against the tougher competition. Both saw a slight decrease in shot share however expected goals per 60 minutes went up nearly half a goal. Similar performance degradation was seen throughout the rest of the lineup – the exception being Lundkvist, who saw his expected goal percentage hold firm with a small drop in expected goals against.
A few things to note. First, while shot share and expected goal differential both decreased, there wasn’t a similar falloff in actual goals scored and/or given up. We’re talking about a smallish sample size, but the trend would indicate that the observed goal share would tend to revert to the expected goal share. Second, if taken further, the Stars record over the 10 full games without Miro Heiskanen was propped up by an unsustainable differential between what happened on the ice and what was likely to happen in those same circumstances over an extended period.
Lessons
Injuries in the NHL create opportunities. Over the last several years, the Dallas Stars have been a healthy bunch. Great for the team overall, but if you’re a player looking to show that you can be trusted with a more prominent role, it can be frustrating.
The primary lesson to take from the last 10 games that the Dallas Stars played without Miro Heiskanen is that the team can survive without its best player. But – and this is a big but – the team is significantly worse. The team maintained its performance through a few extraordinary performances and a good deal of old fashioned luck. With Heiskanen, the Stars could hit 110 points on the season. Without him, they’re likely in the mid-90s, which is just on the top side of a wildcard spot.
First and foremost, Thomas Harley stepped up his game as the number one defender of the reconfigured group. His playoff performance from last year has been followed by a solid start through the first half of the regular season – and he took on the extra minutes and responsibilities in all three zones with little to no dropoff in production. The numbers that he put up running the first power play unit were comparable to Heiskanen’s (and if Pete DeBoer is looking to lower Heiskanen’s minutes through the regular season, Harley could slot in quite nicely).
Second, Nils Lundkvist earned his ice time for the rest of the year. Given more responsibility and tougher competition, his number improved. He’s the only Stars defender who got better in Heiskanen’s absence. Sure, he may still get sheltered third pair minutes – but he needs to be on the ice.
In addition, Lundkvist upped his game while playing with Ryan Suter. Suter still brings skill to the ice as a veteran, but playing excessive minutes on the top pair with Heiskanen doesn’t play to his strengths. If there was ever a time to move Harley to top pair, with Suter dropping to third pair with Lundkvist, it’s now.
One final thing – and a bit off the general topic. Esa Lindell hasn’t received enough credit for what he brings to this team. Sure, that contract is what hits you first. Dallas likely significantly paid a John Klingberg bonus when it was signed. However, if you look at Lindell’s splits, he makes his partners better and he can do it against opponents best players. For as much as is said about Heiskanen’s numbers being capped by the quality of his partners, you can say the same about Lindell – at least since Klingberg fell off a cliff. The arguments made deriding Heiskanen/Suter can be made about Lindell/Hakanpää and the current version of the Stars would be best served by partnering Heiskanen with Lindell and finding a solid right shot defender to play with Harley on a second pairing at the trade deadline.
Miro Heiskanen is reportedly close to drawing back in. He has been missed. But in his absence, we’ve learned quite a bit (and most of it is good) about the rest of the blue line.