How has Dallas Stars' Nils Lundkvist improved since last season?

When it comes to NHL training camp and preseason I’m a big believer in the adage, “write em, while you got em.”

Cuts and demotions happen quickly. That’s why players on the fringe or prospects destined to return to junior hockey are usually high on my radar near the start of camp. Miro Heiskanen will be a member of the Dallas Stars all season, they’ll be lots of time to worry about him. Emil Hemming’s time in training camp has already come and gone.

Which brings us to Nils Lundkivst, who is on the NHL roster, but if past history has told us anything he’ll eventually be shelved by the Stars coaching staff.

In fact, it was mildly surprising Lundkvist even re-signed with the Stars after they didn’t qualify him as a restricted free agent. He had a chance for greener pastures and a fresh start, and willingly picked to return to Dallas.

So in the preseason I’ve been watching a lot of Lundkvist, who played 22 shifts for 22 minutes, 20 seconds on Monday, and so is Stars management.

If Lundkvist is going to become a part of the Stars long-term defensive future, it has to happen this season.

And on Monday, while Lian Bichsel scored the game-winning goal, Lundkvist carried his defensive pairing against the Colorado Avalanche. Lundkvist was responsible defensively, moved the puck quickly, and added some offensive production.

For copyright reasons, I’ve been told we can’t pull actual video here at DLLS. But we are allowed to pull screen grabs, so I’ve done my best to illustrate things that stood out about Lundkvist’s game and what might be worth watching tonight when he’s in the lineup against the Minnesota Wild.

I want to start with how Lundkvist defended, because that’s what will matter most to the Stars coaches — especially after Brendan Smith and Ilya Lyubushkin were boringly effective against the Avalanche.

One of Lundkvist’s problems in the past was he would get lost between the red line and the blue line. Opponents would find angles on him and he didn’t use his skating well enough to defend.

Against Colorado, albeit a team that didn’t feature Nathan MacKinnon or Cale Makar, Lundkivst defended well in the neutral zone. He had good gap, and multiple times we saw instances like this where he forced the Avalanche forward to dump the puck because of a strong gap.

This was particularly noticeable later in the game on an Avalanche 2-on-1 rush.

On the sequence Lundkvist controlled the gap, took away the pass, and once Logan Stankoven came back in support he more aggressively went at the man with the puck to break up the play.

It starts here:

And then continues here.

In a similar vein there was more of this with Lundkvist, sealing plays off along the boards and ending rush chances with his body. This was more important when paired with Bichsel, who got caught up in the play a couple of times.

Ok, now let’s look at the offensive side of the game and when Lundkvist had the puck on his stick.

There were several moments like this, where Lundkvist has time and space and instead of panicking, took the space and drew in the opposing forechecker.

And unlike similar plays last season, where he’d turn or try to skate by, Lundkvist has been better in the preseason about springing the stretch pass once he’s drawn attention. Like this one, which set up a Stars rush chance.

In the offensive zone Lundkvist moved his feet well and used his body to protect the puck. There were aggressive moments, like this one, where he was willing to drive around the net and eventually set up a scoring chance for a forward on the quick pass.

Lundkvist isn’t going to get much power play opportunity in Dallas this season, Heiskanen and Thomas Harley exist. But he at least acquitted himself well in that space.

There are two things I want to highlight on this front and you can watch for these things in the game tonight.

First, power play breakout, Lundkvist did a much better job of hunting the pick after the drop pass.

Picks are technically illegal in hockey, it’s interference, but they never get called in this space and in the Stars system, one of their entries features the defender dropping the pass and then running a “natural” interference on the first penalty killer.

When watching the Stars play tonight, look for this interaction after the drop pass.

In the zone on the power play, Lundkvist did a nice compressing the space effectively.

This is during the 5-on-4, where Lundkvist is at the top of the power play. You don’t want to be this tight to the top of the circles all the time, but when you can compress the defense, and be confident in the setup, it creates a more high-grade scoring chance for the point man.

Notably, this is how Lundkvist set up Wyatt Johnston’s goal on the 5-on-3, with a more compressed power play.