At 27, shorthanded king Esa Lindell is entering the prime of his career

Esa Lindell

Recapping last season

Lindell saw his minutes decline slightly, but saw his performance increase. He was at 24:32 two seasons ago and logged 23:11 last year. Part of that was due to Miro Heiskanen taking over as the No. 1 defenseman, and part was because Lindell's shorthanded time on ice went from 3:48 per game down to 3:00. The Stars were killing fewer penalties, and there was a compressed schedule that made it more difficult to lean so heavily on him, but some lessons might've been learned because of the reduced ice time. Lindell did see improvement in several areas. His SAT (shot differential at even strength) was plus-59. That was significantly better than the minus-136 he had the season before, and astonishingly better than the minus-281 he recorded in 2018-19.

Going forward

Video: DAL@NSH: Lindell wires home wrister to open scoring
With the Stars pondering a shuffle with their defense pairs, Lindell could be in the middle of some interesting changes. There's a chance that he could continue to run with regular partner John Klingberg. However, there's a chance that Klingberg is paired with new guy Ryan Suter (who seems to prefer a right-handed partner) and that could leave Lindell with Miro Heiskanen, Jani Hakanpää or Andrej Sekera.
Lindell has played some on the right side, but has been on the left side with Klingberg, so the guess is Heiskanen would play on the right side if the two are on a pair. It could make sense, as the two are the leading minute men, and Lindell's tendency to play a defensive game might allow Heiskanen to explore his offensive upside. Heiskanen is very good defensively and often will defer to other players, so former partner Jamie Oleksiak often would take runs up ice while Heiskanen stayed back.
By putting Lindell on his left side, Heiskanen might be inclined to take a bigger bite of the puck handling responsibilities and offensive game - and that might be needed at this stage in Heiskanen's career. As far as the SAT numbers go, Klingberg was a career SAT king before his pairing with Lindell, and those possession numbers were a concern for the team's top defenders.
If the Stars do decide to keep Lindell and Klingberg together, there's a chance last season provided a blueprint for better analytics going forward. If they decide to split them up, it'll be interesting to see how the changes in partners are viewed through the eye of statistics. Lindell has seen his points per game average drop from 0.39 in 2018-19 to 0.33 in 2019-20 to 0.29 last season. Unless he gets a boost from being partnered with Heiskanen, there is a real chance those numbers continue to decline this season.
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This story was not subject to the approval of the National Hockey League or Dallas Stars Hockey Club.
Mike Heikais a Senior Staff Writer for DallasStars.com and has covered the Stars since 1994. Follow him on Twitter @MikeHeika, and listen to his podcast.