This is the 2022-23 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Miro Heiskanen
Dallas Stars Defense
The most minutes on a playoff club at 23, the 6th-fastest top speed of the 192 defencemen the tracking covers, and a chance share that swings sixteen points on which forwards are out with him.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018-19 | DAL | 82 | 12 | 21 | 33 | -14 | 16 | 2 | 0 | 4 | 182 | 6.6 | 23:07 |
| 2019-20 | DAL | 68 | 8 | 27 | 35 | +14 | 12 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 163 | 4.9 | 23:46 |
| 2020-21 | DAL | 55 | 8 | 19 | 27 | -9 | 12 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 121 | 6.6 | 24:58 |
| 2021-22 | DAL | 70 | 5 | 31 | 36 | +3 | 24 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 156 | 3.2 | 24:53 |
| 2022-23 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 275 | 33 | 98 | 131 | -6 | 64 | 8 | 0 | 6 | 622 | 5.3 | 24:06 |
This Season So Far
The 2022-23 season has not started. The empty row above is his, and both it and this paragraph fill in on their own from the morning after he first plays: what he has done, what it is worth against his own last season, and the run he is on when the two disagree.
Last Season
5 goals and 31 assists in 70 games — 36 points, a career high by one — with a plus-3 and 24 penalty minutes. 24:53 a night is the 93rd percentile among defencemen and the most on the club.
53.6 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 1,381 minutes, the 79th percentile. His ice went 50-40 against an expectation of 59.42-51.36.
Dallas lost a seven-game first round to Calgary in overtime of the seventh. He played all seven at 26 minutes a night for a goal and two assists.
The Finesse Game
5.37 shots per 60 is the 74th percentile among defencemen and 2:18 a night on the power play is the 84th, with 31 per cent of his points coming there.
The median shot travels 44 feet, the 10th-shortest of the 202 qualified defencemen, and 18 per cent come from the slot, the 90th percentile. That combination is rare and it is the most interesting thing the shot chart says: he does not sit at the point and fire, he walks the line and gets inside. Five goals on 156 shots is 3.2 per cent, the 26th percentile — the shots are good and almost none of them went in.
1.55 takeaways per 60 is the 89th percentile. So is the cost: 2.89 giveaways per 60 is the 95th, which is the bottom of the league. He carries the puck out himself and he loses it more than anyone on this blue line. That is the trade a club makes for a defenceman who will not chip and change.
1.02 even-strength points per 60 is the 61st percentile — ordinary, for a man playing the most minutes on a playoff team.
The Physical Game
6-2 and 197. 1.79 hits per 60 is the 11th percentile among defencemen and 3.17 blocks is the 16th. He defends by getting there first, and the box score records almost none of it.
23.1 mph is the 6th-fastest top speed of the 192 defencemen the tracking covers, behind Devon Toews, Cale Makar, Nick Leddy, Victor Hedman and Brandon Montour. 4.5 bursts over 20 mph per 60 is the 97th percentile.
8.39 miles per 60 is the 81st of 192 from the bottom — squarely ordinary. He is not covering more ground than his peers; he is covering it faster, and the two are not the same measurement.
0.41 penalties taken per 60 is the 46th-lowest of 202 — 24 minutes in 70 games at nearly 25 a night.
The Intangibles
Third overall in 2017, four NHL seasons at 23, 275 games and 131 points.
His chance share is 53.6 per cent and it does not hold still. With Joe Pavelski he is at 65.4 over 792 attempts and without him 48.8 over 1,654. With Jason Robertson 65.0 and without him 49.1. With Roope Hintz 64.5 and without him 49.0. With Jamie Benn he is at 50.5 and with Tyler Seguin 49.2.
Sixteen points of chance share, three times over, and the variable is which forward line is on the ice. That is not a knock — every defenceman moves with his forwards — but the size of it is the honest frame for a 36-point season: this was a top-pair defenceman whose numbers were made largely by three men in front of him.
With Ryan Suter he is at 54.2 over 1,546 attempts and without Suter 52.6 over 900. The partner barely registers. The line does.
What kind of player
The searchable half of the report. The first group is computed from the season's own data; the rest are read out of the prose above, and each one carries the sentence that produced it. A subject the report never raised is simply absent.
- measuredcomputed here from the season's own data
- a strengthread out of the prose, and claimed
- he lacks itraised, and he does not have it
Each computed tag also says how well its measure holds up from one season to the next, because a tag describes a season that has finished and a reader will assume it predicts the one coming. Some do and some do not, and the gap is wide: five-on-five workload repeats well, scoring late does not repeat at all.
- slot-man· shoots from where goals are scored
18.3% of his attempts in the slot, 91st percentile among defencemen
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.69) · 44% keep it
- drives-play· the shot clock turns his way while he is out there
53.6% of the expected goals at five-on-five with him on, 49.7% for his club in the minutes he sat: +3.9, 92nd percentile among defencemen
Season to season, this measure repeats moderately (0.39) · 29% keep it
- workhorse· carries the load at even strength
19:44 a game at five-on-five, 95th percentile among defencemen
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.78) · 58% keep it
“He carries the puck out himself and he loses it more than anyone on this blue line.”
“He is not covering more ground than his peers; he is covering it faster, and the two are not the same measurement.”
“1.79 hits per 60 is the 11th percentile among defencemen and 3.17 blocks is the 16th.”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2021-22 · 1,381 minutes
- Expected goals
- 53.6%
- 80th pct
- Shot attempts
- 52.1%
- 73rd pct
share of the chances while he was out there
share of the attempts while he was out there
Goals while he was on the ice: 50 for, 40 against. Expected: 59.4 and 51.4.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe two rank him within 1 points of one another. It was written for a back edition, with the seasons that followed already known. Neither the agreement nor the gap says anything about the eye, and this report is excluded from the club-level comparison for the same reason.
Both bars are percentiles among the 649 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 68 on their own scale — against every other report's mean. The numbers bar ranks his share of expected goals. A gap is a disagreement about where he belongs, not two scales talking past each other.
Tracked
NHL Edge, 2021-22 · 70 games
- Top speed
- 23.1 mph
- 97th pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 1.89 a game
- Distance
- 3.48 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 91.0 mph
- 42nd pct
fastest he was clocked all season; the league's average best is 21.5
how often he reaches that speed, not how fast he goes
skated, all strengths
one shot; the league's average best is 90.4
A top speed is a season's best, and a man who takes more shifts gets more tries at one; the percentile is the feed's own, against every skater, and says less between a top-pair defenceman and a fourth-line wing than it does between two men in the same job. The counts are shown per game for the same reason.
Usual linemates
2021-22 · 1381 minutes at five-on-five
- Ryan Suter61%
- Esa Lindell31%
Share of his five-on-five ice time spent alongside each player, measured from shift charts. Special teams are excluded: a power-play unit is not a line.
Why the numbers land there
Five-on-five, 2021-22
- The club
- DAL took 51.0% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 53.6% — 2.6 above the club he did it on.
- The role
- First pair, 1,381 minutes at five-on-five — 93rd percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ryan Suter | 54.2% | 52.6% | 48.5% |
| Jamie Benn | 50.5% | 55.2% | 46.3% |
| Joe Pavelski | 65.4% | 48.8% | 53.2% |
54.2% together, 52.6% for him apart and 48.5% for Suter apart. Suter was worse away from him while his own share held — the pairing was doing more for Suter than for him.
Expected-goal share while both were on the ice, and for each man in the minutes he played without the other. Apart is the pair subtracted from his own totals. It does not settle who was carrying whom — apart from each other, both were still playing with somebody — but it does say whether the share travelled when the pairing broke up.
Where he shoots from
goal on goal missed
218 unblocked shots in 2021-22, 6 of them goals. His median goal came from 15 feet. 12% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 57% from beyond forty.