Miro Heiskanen day-to-day after hit in Washington

Dallas held an optional skate Wednesday, and the first Heiskanen update out of it was about as calm as Stars fans could have hoped for.

Mike Heika

@MikeHeika

Optional practice today Heiskanen is day to day with upper body injury Pretty positive outlook after coming out last game.

Here's how it happened. Early in the 2nd period of Tuesday's 6-5 win over the Capitals, Justin Sourdif hit Heiskanen into the boards. He played 9:41 over 8 shifts and didn't come back. In a game with 11 goals, the Stars lost their best defenceman for most of the night and still had to grind out the win.

Gulutzan said after the game the team hoped it wasn't as bad as it first looked, and that Heiskanen would be re-evaluated Wednesday. After that re-evaluation, the news was good enough to breathe on.

Lia Assimakopoulos

@Lassimak

Glen Gulutzan said Miro Heiskanen is day-to-day with upper-body injury. “More good than bad.”

"More good than bad" isn't a clean bill of health, though. NHL.com quoted Gulutzan calling it "day to day for a little while," and said Heiskanen is unlikely to play Thursday at Columbus. Day-to-day with a little while tacked on usually means a game or 2, not just a quick maintenance day. The upside is that nobody is talking about weeks or IR, and that's the only thing that really matters here.

Why Dallas is sweating it: Heiskanen is the engine of that blue line. He has 3 goals and 8 assists for 11 points in 15 games, leads Stars defencemen in scoring and plays almost 25 minutes a night. The Stars pay him like it too, on an 8-year, $67.6 million deal that runs through 2028-29. Pull those minutes out of the lineup and everyone else on the back end moves up a spot whether they're ready or not.

What to watch next: whether Heiskanen skates with the group before the Columbus trip, and who soaks up his power play and penalty kill time if he sits. If he's back by the weekend, this was just a scare. If day-to-day turns into week-to-week, Dallas has a real problem in November.