Glen Gulutzan just gave an update on Miro Heiskanen's upper body injury, and the Dallas Stars will know more tomorrow.
It comes after a 6-5 win at Washington tonight, a game Dallas needed every goal to win. Winning is good. Losing your top defenseman in the process is not.
Mike Heika passed along what the Stars head coach said about the injury.
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Gulutzan said the team will have Heiskanen "evaluated again" and is "hoping right now that it's not as serious as we first thought." He added that the team will "know more tomorrow."
That wording matters. The first read on this was worse than whatever the Stars believe at the moment, and nobody in that building is ready to say how much worse.
Heiskanen has 11 points in 14 games this season, with 3 goals and 8 assists. He's a +2 on a team that sits at +8 in goal differential.
What a Heiskanen absence would mean for Dallas
The Stars have won two straight and are 7-3-0 over their last 10. That is a team with some momentum, and it has been getting it with Heiskanen on the back end.
He was drafted third overall by Dallas in 2017 and has played 566 regular-season games over his NHL career. Replacing that kind of workload is not something a coach does with a simple lineup tweak.
Dallas has been strong away from home at 4-1-1 on the road, and the next test is Thursday at Columbus. That game comes with the evaluation fresh and the answer still unknown.
The Stars also have a bigger question looming. Just a day ago we passed along Jeff Marek's report on Zach Werenski, who he says Dallas hasn't cooled on. A trade for a defenseman looks very different if the one already on the roster is hurt.
That's the part to watch. A short absence changes nothing. A long one would push Jim Nill to the phones, and Werenski's name is already out there.
Gulutzan promised more information tomorrow. Until then, the Stars are left to wait on a scan, a second opinion and a decision about Thursday in Columbus.
Should the Stars go after Zach Werenski if Miro Heiskanen misses significant time?
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