DALLAS _ Dallas Stars defenseman Miro Heiskanen left Thursday's 4-1 loss to Buffalo with an upper-body injury after a collision in the corner during the second period. After the game, Stars interim head coach Rick Bowness labeled Heiskanen "day to day" and did not specify whether he was in concussion protocol or not.
With 14:40 left in the second period, Heiskanen tried to retrieve a puck in the corner of the defensive zone when Sabres forward Rasmus Asplund appeared to cross-check then knee Heiskanen in the head as he was falling down.
Heiskanen was slow to get up before skating to the bench. He skated two more shifts before missing the final 29:47 of the game. Heiskanen was officially ruled out of the game during the second intermission.
"We all know what he does for us," Stars interim head coach Rick Bowness said. "Our breakouts are a lot better, he joins the rush and he's a danger on that offensive blue line. Take him out of there, and that's a big hole. There's just no getting around that. Injuries happen, and got to keep playing. Got to overcome them."
Heiskanen has not missed a game since he started playing in the NHL last season and entered Thursday leading the Stars by playing 24:24 a game. Before he exited, Heiskanen picked up an assist when his point shot went wide, caromed off the boards right to Jamie Benn, who scored his 12th goal of the season.
If the injury is concussion related, Heiskanen does have a history. He missed Stars training camp in 2017 because he suffered a concussion in Finland.
Without Heiskanen, normal partner Jamie Oleksiak rotated with John Klingberg (5:12 at 5 on 5) and Andrej Sekera (3:52).
"He's an elite player on this team, so anytime you lose one of those guys, it doesn't matter who it is, it's going to hurt," Stars goaltender Ben Bishop said. "Obviously, we're down a goal there, we rely on those guys."
Behind again: For the 11th time in the last 14 games, the Stars allowed the first goal on Thursday night, when Jimmy Vesey scored 7:01 into the game. Dallas has been one of the league's best teams at erasing deficits this league (eight wins when trailing after two periods leads the league) but couldn't do it Thursday.
"We need to figure out our starts," Stars forward Tyler Seguin said. "It's obviously nice to have the resilience that we do and being able to come back in games, but we're flirting with fire and we got burned tonight."
"The effort is there," Stars defenseman John Klingberg said. "We bring it every night and like you see, we've been coming back in a lot of games, too. Obviously, you want to have a fast start, but there's nothing I can point at right now."
"You're not going to win every game coming back in this league," Bowness said. "There's no chance. The other team is too good. We've won eight coming back. You just can't, there's no chance we're going to keep doing that all the time."
The Stars are now 9-13-2 when trailing first.
Strong second: The Stars controlled the play in the second period, outshooting the Sabres 16-5 in the middle period, but gave up a critical goal with 3:50 left in the period when Rasmus Dahlin shot a screened point shot past Bishop.
"We needed something to get us going, give us an extra boost in the third and we started running around a little bit too much and trying to do much by ourselves," Bowness said. "The team game kind of disappeared for a while there and lost the flow."
