The Discourse: Harley and DeSmith earn Dallas three points, concerns without Heiskanen, and Rantanen's fit

The list of talking points keep growing.

Thomas Harley and Casey DeSmith were responsible for three points this weekend. That’s the really the long and short of it.

It’s the rest that remains a growing concern. In terms of attempts, Dallas was outshot 71-102 over the weekend versus Tampa Bay and Philadelphia. In their last ten games, they’ve only controlled shot share—or over 50 percent in two of them: Calgary and Anaheim. Those were also games that Dallas barely won. Somebody in the comments was able to distill my Miro Heiskanen thesis better than I ever could. Without the Finnish defender, the Stars can’t take games off.

I hate to continue going back to this because it’s not like anything can be done about it. But a comment on Twitter triggered me re: the offense struggling under Heiskanen too. Offense and goals are two distinct things. The offense was not struggling under Heiskanen. Their goal-scoring was. In terms of shot quality, Dallas was 4th in expected goals-for at even-strength, adjusted for minutes. The difference was the power play. Funny thing that: without Heiskanen, Dallas is currently 13th in expected goals at even-strength. Want to guess what the difference is as a goal-scoring team besides the power play? You guessed it: even-strength shooting percentage.

But when it comes to Heiskanen, don’t read me yap about it. Check out Micah Blake McCurdy’s beautiful charts.

Night (without Miro) meet Day (with Miro). Not for nothing, but Heiskanen’s offensive impact at even-strength is actually higher than Harley’s (2.74 expected goals-for per 60).

I promise I’ll finally bring this “Dallas without Heiskanen” discussion to a close. I just want to stress how misleading outcomes can be. Yes, Heiskanen was a drag on the top power play unit. But how many Panthers fans are complaining about Alexander Barkov’s playmaking on the power play as if one element makes a player? It’s true. Barkov only has four primary assists on the man advantage if you can believe that; one less than Jamie Benn. But beyond that, the power play drama — and Mark Stone — really masked the season he was having. Heiskanen is young enough that we shouldn’t be surprised to see him develop, but I get the feeling that it went completely unnoticed in the fog of shooting percentages.

At this point, the real question is who can Dallas can be without him. Is there room for optimism? Well, you’re kind of seeing it. Dallas can win games without needing to control play. I don’t consider this faint praise. There’s nothing faint about what Thomas Harley is doing as Dallas’ top defender in Heiskanen’s absence, how DeSmith has really excelled behind Jake Oettinger, or the team’s status in the Central.

While I still have doubts that whether the Stars can catch Winnipeg (who just lost to Vancouver and Buffalo, and needed overtime to put away a McDavid, Draisaitl-less Edmonton team), if they won the two games in hand they have over the Jets, they would be four points shy of closing the official gap. That’s a testament to how good the team can be when everything else fails. It’s not a formula they take into the playoffs to win a series, but it’s certainly a sign they can steal games.

It’s not like you don’t need those, too.

Thomas Harley

Harley was the enigma that shouldn’t have been. But isn’t that how it’s always been? Go back to his draft class. It makes no sense that he fell to Dallas. But he did. The potential was there early. Then he arrived ahead of schedule. However, at this point it no longer feels like an arrival, but a christening.

In 20 games without Heiskanen, Harley has 21 points in 20 games. While a small sample size, that’s the kind of absurd point pace you’re seeing in players like Zach Werenski. The underlying numbers are equally absurd. Not only is his defense improving, but he’s rating high on the penalty kill, and doing it all with increasingly difficult competition.

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I’m not sure how much higher Harley can go, but he’s kind of the flipside to Heiskanen: where Heiskanen influences the climate, Harley can influence the weather¹.

Mikko Rantanen

I’m seeing this discussion around Rantanen not just from Stars fans, but from hockey fans in general. Who is Rantanen without Nathan MacKinnon? For paid subscribers, I’ll be digging deep to try to answer that question tomorrow.

As someone who gets increasingly depressed watching celebrities hock AI slop during ESPN’s barrage of the exact same commercials, I’m not becoming what I hate am I?

Nonetheless, I don’t bring up this talking point up just to squeeze some money out of another reader, but because insight takes time. In the same way the talking point around Rantanen in Carolina was lazy and false, Rantanen’s limited time in Dallas isn’t giving us much to learn.

However, I do think there are specific patterns unfolding — patterns that highlight some of Dallas’ season-long issues — both for better and for worse. Rantanen’s surroundings may have drastically changed, but he hasn’t.

The new (new) power play unit

For whatever reason, my tweet about the old/new unit of Johnston-Hintz-Robertson-Duchene-Harley being perfect got a ton of attention. Maybe the most likes of anything hockey-related I’ve ever blasted out.

I don’t have any qualifiers either. That newlook top unit was demonic. In their cameo, they were clicking at 15.05 goals per 60, and 12.76 in expected goals per 60. Conversely, the new new unit is 6.99 and 5.77 respectively. Insane outcomes and elite routine on one hand, and average outcomes and awful routine on the other.

Now. Let’s not kid ourselves. Both had and have extremely small sample sizes. We have no way of knowing whether the new group with Rantanen will find their footing or not. Conversely, we have every reason to suspect that the previous newlook top unit would have slowed down. Dread it. Run from it. Regression arrives all the same. Their shooting percentage was obscene.

But my gut tells me what the previous unit was doing was clicking. This is just my personal opinion though. When you have a player like Rantanen, you have to make it work. This makes me curious what the power play will look like if Heiskanen gets in meaningful games. Could we get yet another new unit, with Heiskanen drawing in over Harley? Before you bust six veins trying to leave an angry comment, let’s at least consider that Heiskanen and Rantanen’s chemistry will have its own fingerprints.

No, I would not agree with this at all. And I suspect Harley has done more than enough to convince the organization that the power play now runs through Harley. But whether at even-strength, or the power play, it’s crazy to think that a really important duo has yet to be played in the lineup. While the offensive relationship between forwards and defenders is, to my knowledge, not a topic of study, we can guestimate some positive influence at minimum. It’s just a question of degree.

Precap versus Minnesota

With Minnesota missing Kirill Kaprizov and Joel Eriksson Ek, this will be yet another game that is Dallas’ to lose. However, even with both players, the Wild are specialists by trade: strong goaltending.

That’s it. Literally.

This isn’t to underrate the Wild. Their top four on the blueline is one of the best in the business. When healthy, the team counterpunches like a discount Vegas squad. But there aren’t many good reasons for Dallas to lose tonight’s contest at even-strength or on special teams outside of getting goalie’d.

For me, the concern is Dallas playing another bad game. Whether they win or lose is secondary to whether they can possess the puck and control territory against a weakened opponent. I don’t want to belabor the point about who this team is without Heiskanen. I don’t like writing it any more than you like reading it. This is not the Doom Stack². But where previously we could chalk it up to a limited sample size, and other injuries, now Dallas has Rantanen. Even without Tyler Seguin, their forward group is easily the strongest in the NHL, at least on paper. That should be enough to dominate a game here and there. Frankly, I don’t know that they’ve crossed that bar yet.

Tonight will provide ample motivation.

1. I haven’t tortured this analogy to death have I?

2. Although that has a nice ring to it.