There's good defensemen, great defensemen and then there's Miro Heiskanen

Michael Raffl typically does things at full speed all the time.
So it was that in a recent practice in Frisco the first-year Stars player was on the giddy up and ready to blow down the left wing past Miro Heiskanen, with the obvious intent to either go wide and take it to the net or pass across to linemate Jamie Benn to set up a great scoring chance.

And as Raffl crossed the offensive blueline in full stride, he looked back to see that Heiskanen had picked his pocket and ended the drill. The sapient Finnish defenseman didn't knock the puck away or even take Raffl on physically. He simply dispossessed the veteran winger of the pill, and calmly strode into the neutral zone with the puck on his stick.
As Raffl looked back in disbelief, Benn skated over and put his arm around Raffl's shoulder as the two skated to the bench, almost as if to tell him, "Yeah bud, we've all been there."
Heiskanen might be one of the best stick men in the NHL. Heck, he might even be the best. Who knows, he might be one of the best of all time - it's tough to measure this stuff.
But if you ever wanted a display of how good the 22-year-old defenseman can be, it was Tuesday against the Edmonton Oilers and two-time Hart Trophy winner Connor McDavid. Heiskanen drew a lot of ice time against McDavid, and the speedy center was held off the scoresheet for the first time this season. That's right, McDavid finished with no goals, no assists and three harmless shots on goal.
That's how good Heiskanen was.
"He had a great stick," Stars head coach Rick Bowness said. "He was great, he really was. Skating the puck out, but it's his stick breaking up plays. That's what he was so good at."
The stickwork of Heiskanen is becoming legendary. When he was drafted third overall in 2017, the scouting report was that he was actually ahead of the game defensively and needed to catch up offensively. That's usually not the case with young blueliners. But Heiskanen has a sixth sense on these things. He reads plays very well, he's an effortless skater who rarely looks tired, and he has just an unreal ability to put his stick in the right place at the right time.

"There's just a timing with it, it's an instinct you have," Bowness said.
Asked if Heiskanen is one of the best at stickwork that Bowness has seen in his four decades of NHL coaching, the Stars bench boss said, "Yeah, yeah he is."
Jere Lehtinen, who serves as the GM of the Finnish National Team and will play a big role in selecting the roster for the Olympics was chatting about Heiskanen on the elevator after the game. Asked about Heiskanen's knack to poke a puck out of a crowd or take it off a stick in full motion, Lehtinen said it's an amazing talent.
He said Heiskanen reads plays and anticipates, and it's a joy to watch.
As for the McDavid assignment, it was fun, Heiskanen said.
"I think we took time and space away from him and played him pretty hard, so he didn't have that much time to make plays," Heiskanen said. "But, of course, he's great and will always have some chances. I think we played really well against him tonight."
McDavid is pretty special himself with the stick and at one point had Heiskanen chasing the puck while he danced around by the goal line. A few minutes later, however, Heiskanen showed in open ice why he's so special.
McDavid was bearing down in the offensive zone at full speed trying to create the kind of memorable highlight that has filled hockey shows for the past month. But just as it appeared McDavid might turn the corner, Heiskanen swept the puck away harmlessly to the boards and the shift pretty much ended there.
"He was coming really fast there, so I just tried to poke check because if he's going to skate around me, that's a tough play," Heiskanen said. "You have to kind of hit it the first time. If you don't hit it, it's going to be tough to defend him."
His Dallas teammates have seen it quite a bit in the past four seasons.
"Miro is one of the elite skaters, so he did a job," veteran Joe Pavelski said matter-of-factly. "It's a tough assignment over there. But on top of it, you get a lot of help from guys being in position, doing their job, getting some pucks deep. Those things add up."
Benn was asked about Heiskanen's improvement a few weeks back and said the smart defenseman just keeps getting better and more consistent.
"Obviously, he's taken his game to the next level," Benn said. "So am I surprised? No. But did we expect it every night? That's hard to do that every night for 82 games. He's pretty close to it."
And heck, he'll even throw in some pretty impressive plays in practice, too.
Just ask Raffl.
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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.