How good is Ryan Suter with Miro Heiskanen? Plus a brief history of Miro's duos

Has Dallas EVER had someone that could level up Heiskanen?

Roman Polak, Jamie Oleksiak, Colin Miller, and Ryan Suter. It’s a list of names that don’t look out of sorts if you’re talking about blueline depth. However, that’s not what we’re talking about. We’re not talking about a list of Some Dudes who can contribute to defense. We’re talking about the regular partners of Miro Heiskanen...one of the 10 best defenders in all of hockey.  

I mentioned on Twitter something I noticed in the Vegas game: Heiskanen looking visibly frustrated within a shift. I suppose you could come to your own conclusion about What It Really Means.  

But I’m not interested in breaking down the body language here. Nor am I interested in trying to manufacture some kind of drama. I bring it up because it feels like the perfect encapsulation of Heiskanen’s five years without a consistent, quality partner; five years of someone pulling the weight of others instead of pulling their own. And now we’re at the point where the bulk of his young career has been spent on his weakside.  

“But Heiskanen is comfortable anywhere.” This is what I dig about analysis. Rather than listen to someone’s lazy explanation for why Heiskanen should be playing on his weakside, I get to cut through the bullshit and get straight to the truth about who he’s most effective with or not, and where he’s most effective, or not.  

So that’s exactly what we’re gonna do. What follows will be a look at at three key pieces of evidence: Heiskanen’s metrics with Suter versus without, Heiskanen’s metrics with others versus without, a little bit of video from this season, and what’s in store for the future.