This is the 2024-25 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Miro Heiskanen
Dallas Stars Defense
The highest chance share of any defenceman in this edition playing twenty-four minutes a night, on the club with the fourth-best suppression in hockey.
| 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 | DAL | 79 | 11 | 62 | 73 | +12 | 32 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 206 | 5.3 | 25:29 |
| 2023-24 | DAL | 71 | 9 | 45 | 54 | +8 | 36 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 162 | 5.6 | 24:32 |
| 2024-25 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 425 | 53 | 205 | 258 | +14 | 132 | 12 | 0 | 10 | 990 | 5.3 | 24:26 |
This Season So Far
The 2024-25 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
Seventy-one games, 9 goals and 45 assists for 54 points, 2 on the power play, 24:32 a night and plus-8. He took 57.5 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 1,388 minutes, the 96th percentile, and his ice went 48-45 against an expectation of 62.71-46.30.
Fifteen goals of scoring missing at five-on-five behind the man who plays the most on a club that scored 298 goals. The chances against arrived exactly as predicted; the chances for did not convert, and that is the club’s shooters rather than him. The share is the number to keep, and it is the highest of any defenceman in this edition who played twenty-four minutes a night — ahead of Quinn Hughes, Cale Makar and Roman Josi.
The Finesse Game
He skates the puck out of trouble rather than passing it out. The stride is long and effortless and he changes direction without losing speed, and a forecheck that has him trapped along the wall is usually wrong about that.
He walks the line and holds it, and 205 assists in 425 games is a first-pair playmaking rate produced mostly without a power play — he had 45 assists last season and only 2 power-play goals. One hundred and sixty-two shots at a median of 50 feet with 67 per cent from beyond 40; the shot is a delivery mechanism rather than a weapon and 53 goals in 425 games says so.
The Physical Game
He is 6-2 and 197 and defends with position and stick. He does not punish anybody and does not need to — 36 penalty minutes in 71 games at 24:32 a night is a low rate for the hardest assignment on a hundred-point club.
He does not clear his crease by force and loses net-front battles to heavy forwards. The club employs Esa Lindell, Ilya Lyubushkin and Brendan Smith for exactly that reason.
The Intangibles
Third overall in 2017 out of Espoo, six seasons, 425 games and 24:26 a night across all of them. He has been the best defenceman on a contender since he was 21 and has never been the story.
He is 25 and the club’s structure is built on him being able to leave his own end with the puck. Nothing in the record suggests that changes.
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 1,388 minutes
- Expected goals
- 57.5%
- 96th pct
- Shot attempts
- 57%
- 95th 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: 48 for, 45 against. Expected: 62.7 and 46.3.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe two rank him within 17 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 201 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 71 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.
Usual linemates
2023-24 · 1388 minutes at five-on-five
- Ryan Suternow STL42%
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, 2023-24
- The club
- DAL took 54.6% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 57.5% — 2.9 above the club he did it on.
- The role
- First pair, 1,388 minutes at five-on-five — 93rd percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Thomas Harley | 59.6% | 55.9% | 51.5% |
| Ryan Suter | 54.7% | 59.6% | 53.6% |
| Jason Robertson | 59.9% | 56.5% | 56.1% |
59.6% together, 55.9% for him apart and 51.5% for Harley apart. Both were worse apart, so whatever the two of them had together was doing real work.
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
239 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 9 of them goals. His median goal came from 25 feet. 8% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 67% from beyond forty.