Heiskanen’s 29:47 Left Dallas Asking Too Much of Too Few

Nearly half a hockey game is a substantial assignment for one defenseman. Miro Heiskanen played 29:47 Thursday, and Dallas still finished with only 19 shots and a 5-2 loss to the Montréal Canadiens. The Stars could put him on the ice for almost thirty minutes. They could not turn that workload into a broad enough attack to recover from their early mistakes.

Heiskanen was hardly absent from the offense. He put three shots on goal and earned an assist when Wyatt Johnston tied the game at 12:53 of the first period. Only Jason Robertson, with four shots, tested Jakub Dobeš more often among the Stars.

Arttu Hyry also had three. Heiskanen was supplying attempts as well as minutes; the demand for another answer could reasonably extend beyond him.

Consider the division of work on Dallas’s defense. Thomas Harley played 24:53. Nils Lundkvist logged 17:01, Lian Bichsel 16:01 and Tyler Myers 14:43.

Trey Taylor, making his NHL debut, received 10:44. Those were markedly different assignments on a night when Dallas was missing Esa Lindell and Kyle Capobianco. Heiskanen’s minutes stand out within that group, but there is no need to invent exhaustion to find the problem.

His offensive contribution was already substantial beside forwards who generated very little shooting: Tyler Seguin had none in 17:01, while Roope Hintz recorded one in 19:27.

Those totals overlap: two defensemen can be working together, so they are not separate blocks of the game. The burden was nevertheless uneven. Dallas gave Heiskanen far more ice than any other defender, while Taylor’s first appearance occupied a small part of the rotation. The gap makes asking Heiskanen to supply still more offense a questionable first response.

The early score gave those minutes an increasingly difficult purpose. Johnston’s power-play goal, assisted by Mikko Rantanen and Heiskanen, answered Cole Caufield’s opener and made it 1-1. At 16:05, Alex Newhook put Montréal back ahead.

Caufield scored again 27 seconds later. Newhook then made it 4-1 at 6:11 of the second period. Dallas needed a sustained recovery, and Jamie Benn supplied its first installment at 8:52, scoring with assists from Rantanen and Johnston.

The other installment never arrived. Benn’s goal left 31:08 to play, yet Dallas scored no more.

That is where the workload argument should become more demanding. Heiskanen’s assist had helped produce a goal, but simply extending his time on the ice was no guarantee of another. Johnston and Rantanen participated in both Dallas goals; Heiskanen and Benn provided the other scoring contributions.

Dallas needed additional players to turn their own minutes into shots and points. Four different Stars finishing with points is useful production concentrated in a small group. Against a team that had already scored four times, it was insufficient.

Montréal’s finishing also makes this a more complicated loss than an indictment of Dallas’s forwards. Newhook scored on both of his shots, and Caufield scored twice from three. Jake Oettinger finished with 16 saves on 20 shots, while Danault’s late empty-net goal was excluded from the goaltender’s line.

A better save could have reduced the task facing the Stars. So could avoiding the two goals conceded in that short first-period burst. Heiskanen’s three shots were not a substitute for either correction, and the nearly even final shot count—21 for Montréal, 19 for Dallas—does not make the quality or timing of every chance identical.

Still, Dallas entered the third period only two goals behind and produced five shots on goal. Heiskanen had one of them at 14:13. It was saved, as were all the others. The player carrying Dallas’s largest defensive workload was still contributing an attempt late in the chase. What never appeared was enough company at the other end to make those minutes lead somewhere.

Sources

NHL: official final box score

NHL: official play-by-play

NHL: official final box score

NHL: official game summary and completion time

Stars: regional broadcast footprint

NHL: official club and game reporting