Tuesday Dallas Stars Roundup: Miro Heiskanen Still a Few Steps Away, Rémi Poirier Talks Returning to Dallas, David Perron Gaining Confidence, Hometown Remix Gear Appears, and More

There were a few different colors of gear on display at practice Tuesday morning in Frisco.

The Stars practiced today, and they will practice again on Wednesday ahead of Thursday’s game against Winnipeg. With four days in between last Saturday’s win over San Jose and Thursday, Dallas is in their longest stretch this year of practice time uninterrupted by a game.

Speaking of uninterrupted, we have a lot to get to today. So, let’s hop around as many places as possible in today’s Roundup.

One player who didn’t practice on Tuesday was Miro Heiskanen, who suffered an upper-body injury in Washington a week ago, on November 3. And while Heiskanen didn’t hit the ice with the team today, Glen Gulutzan says that could change quickly.

“He needs to take some steps if he’s going to [play],” Gulutzan said when asked about Heiskanen’s availability for Thursday’s game. “The encouraging part is, every day, you feel a little bit better. He’s dealt with this before over his career, and said once it starts to go, it goes quickly. So we’re just hoping that happens.”

While it’s not entirely clear what those steps entail for Heiskanen, it doesn’t sound like he’s been ruled out for Thursday’s game just yet.

With Trey Taylor was loaned to Texas and Kyle Capobianco still recovering from his own injury—though Capobianco was watching from rinkside during practice at one point today—the Stars currently have five healthy defensemen. That means that if Heiskanen isn’t able to go on Thursday, the Stars would likely need to recall Taylor.

The Stars are able to do that, because Taylor will have fulfilled the new CBA’s criteria of playing at least one AHL game after being sent to the minors before being recalled again. Texas play tonight (Tuesday) and Wednesday, so as long as Taylor plays in at least one of those matches, he’ll be eligible to be recalled to Dallas for Thursday’s game against Winnipeg, should the Stars need to do so.

(And yes—they have both the necessary cap space and roster spot to do that, even with Rémi Poirier on the NHL roster for the moment.)

In the absence of a sixth defenseman at practice, Colin Blackwell skated on a pairing with Tyler Myers, which Gulutzan said actually led to a funny moment today during a defensive coverage drill.

“I actually gave the guys some wrong coaching today,” Gulutzan said, “I had Blackie playing D for a second there, and I told Arty and Roop they were in the wrong spot. But I didn’t realize they were actually on offense.”

Gulutzan also had some forwards practice defending a 2-on-1 rush against, just for a change of pace.

“I liked our practice today with that group,” Gulutzan said. “We subbed in some forwards, which is always good. Some of those PP guys need to know how to play a 2-on-1 when they get stuck back there, so they did a little bit of that today.”

The forward lines were all in the same configurations as they were to start Saturday’s game against San Jose, with Arttu Hyry on the right wing of Hintz, and Jamie Benn with Rantanen and Johnston.

The personal reasons for Sam Steel’s absence a couple games ago appear to have been made clear: the Steel family had a new addition a few days ago in the form of the birth of their son, Willem.

Steel said everyone is doing well, including “Little Will,” as they call him. Add Steel to the increasingly long list of new fathers in the Stars’ dressing room, including Jake Oettinger, Tyler Seguin, Jamie Benn, Nils Lundkvist, among others.

Gulutzan also said this stretch of practice days is especially good for someone like David Perron, who joined the team mid-year. Despite Perron having two weeks of practice time before he debuted in a game, the mixture of having a few games under his belt along with a few days to reinforce some things is a very good one.

In fact, Gulutzan said he made a conscious effort in Saturday’s game to get Perron some more ice time in the third period, and he did that. After Perron played sparingly through 40 minutes due to all the penalties in both directions. Perron played 3:23 in the third after playing only two minutes in the first period and a bit more than that in the second.

And for Perron’s part, he says he completely understands that.