Miro Heiskanen is 21 years old and in his second NHL season, but the Dallas Stars defenseman is already being compared to Hockey Hall of Famers.
It’s the Hall of Famers themselves heaping the praise on him.
“His speed reminds me of Paul Coffey,” Nicklas Lidstrom said, referencing a fellow Hall of Fame defenseman. “Both of those guys can beat opponents with pure speed. Coffey was so fast that stick-handling wasn’t required. Three strides and he’d be by a defender, if that. Heiskanen skates that effortlessly too.”
Heiskanen has been a force for the Stars on their run to the Stanley Cup Final. They will play the Tampa Bay Lightning, who advanced with a 2-1 overtime victory against the New York Islanders in Game 6 of the Eastern Conference Final on Thursday. Game 1 is in Edmonton, the hub city for the conference finals and Cup Final, on Saturday (7:30 p.m. ET; NBC, CBC, SN, TVAS).
Heiskanen has 22 points (five goals, 17 assists) in 21 games this postseason, and had 21 points through 16 games before being held to one assist in Dallas’ five-game win against the Vegas Golden Knights in the Western Conference Final. He leads NHL defensemen in postseason scoring and is fourth overall.
He is one of eight defensemen to score 21 points in fewer than 16 games in a single postseason. The other seven are Hall of Famers: Coffey (12 games in 1985), Bobby Orr (13 in 1972), Brian Leetch (15 in 1994), Ray Bourque (15 in 1991), Al MacInnis (15 in 1989), Denis Potvin (15 in 1981) and Larry Robinson (15 in 1978).
Leetch, who was voted the Conn Smythe Trophy winner as most valuable player of the Stanley Cup Playoffs for the New York Rangers in 1994, said he sees a lot of himself in Heiskanen.
“Just the way he sees the entire ice, he can control the pace of the game,” Leetch said. “He reminds me of the way I played in that way.”
A key to all of those Hall of Famers mentioned was their skating ability, which is Heiskanen’s greatest strength.
Teppo Numminen, a defenseman for 20 NHL seasons (1988-2009), compared Heiskanen’s skating to that of Scott Niedermayer, a Hall of Famer who is considered by many to be one of the finest skating defensemen of all time.
“He finds the space on the ice and it seems like he’s not in a rush anytime or in any situation because he’s so quick,” Numminen said. “He’s such a good skater and then he reads the play well.”
Heiskanen said he doesn’t know exactly when he realized skating would be his greatest asset.
“I was pretty young,” he said. “I’ve always skated a lot so maybe that’s where it’s coming from. When I was younger I was skating outdoors in the winter months (in Finland). It helped a lot.”
Video: Miro Heiskanen‘s best plays of the postseason
Heiskanen is still young, at least for an NHL defenseman playing nearly 26 minutes per game in the postseason.
Numminen said Heiskanen’s ability to play fast yet with patience separates him from other young defensemen in the League.
“It’s understanding when to use your speed and how you use it,” Numminen said. “It all starts with the ability to skate and then your hockey sense takes over. You hear it so many times, especially with young defensemen, ‘Oh, he’s a great player, he goes end to end,’ but then you start looking at him and the players who don’t figure it out are in a rush all the time. They may be the fastest guys on the ice, but they don’t slow it down or play the game the right way, to have the patience to find the space. Even if you’re a good skater and you have the speed you might do the wrong thing and take your own space away if you rush it. That’s what I see and what I like about Miro’s game. It seems like he’s not in a rush ever.”
Heiskanen’s hockey sense was evident as soon as he arrived in Dallas as a 19-year-old after his final season playing in Finland, when he also represented his country at the 2018 IIHF World Junior Championship, the 2018 PyeongChang Olympics and the 2018 IIHF World Championship.
“He’s like artificial intelligence that way, like a computer or a robot, but he learns,” Stars broadcaster Daryl Reaugh told the NHL @TheRink podcast. “I remember the coaches were telling me his rookie year, the first couple of times he came back to the bench and there was some adjustment, it was Rick Bowness running the D and he basically said, ‘I could tell as the words were coming out of my mouth that the kid already had it and he didn’t need to hear it but he just absorbed it. And I never saw him make that mistake again, ever.’ He’s a very special player.”
So much so that Bowness, then an assistant and now the Stars coach, said he doesn’t want to come up with a comparison for Heiskanen because it wouldn’t be fair.
“The elite players in our league, it’s tough to find comparisons,” Bowness said. “For Miro, he’s his own guy, he’s his own style. He’s an elite player at that young age, but a comparison would be tough just because of the way he plays. He’s so reliable. He’s not the physical guy, but you don’t beat him very often. The offensive upside is huge because of his skating ability, his poise and his puck skills. I’d have a tough time comparing him to anybody.”
Heiskanen’s ice time reflects the coach’s feelings.
He’s leading the Stars with an average ice time of 25:43 per game in the postseason; 21:05 at even strength (also the most on Dallas), 2:25 on the power play (sixth) and 2:13 on the penalty kill (fifth). He played a Stars-high 23:46 per game in the regular season; 19:24 at even strength (first), 2:17 on the power play (sixth) and 2:04 on the penalty kill (tied with Blake Comeau for fifth).
“It’s always against the best lines, every power play and PK,” Bowness said.
Heiskanen said the work energizes him.
“I like to be out there in every situation,” he said. “I try to help my team as much as I can. I love to play hockey so I just go out there, have fun and work hard, do everything as good as I can. That’s it. I just love to be there on the ice.”
Numminen said the ice time reflects Heiskanen’s understanding of his job.
“Defense first,” he said. “People say good defense creates offense, but good defense really creates ice time.”
Bowness said, “I haven’t coached a kid at this age that can do the things he’s done.”
Heiskanen has a chance to do more things in the Cup Final, such as becoming the youngest player to win the Conn Smythe since goalie Patrick Roy did it as a 20-year-old with the Montreal Canadiens in 1986.
The Norris Trophy, awarded annually to the best defenseman in the NHL, is likely in his future. Perhaps the Hall of Fame too.
“If we look at one player that’s really done the magic for us in terms of inner team confidence or what is that one edge we have, it’s him,” former Stars goalie Marty Turco told NHL @TheRink. “Heiskanen is a generational player. He shouldn’t be left off too many Norris ballots for the next couple of years.”
