Nils Lundkvist’s season high arrived without a scoring highlight to advertise it. Dallas used him for 21:06 Thursday in Columbus, more time than he had played in any earlier game this season. The expanded assignment was the news in his night.
The Dallas Stars lost 2-1 in a shootout, but Lundkvist completed a season-high 21:06 without a point, a blocked shot or much statistical noise. He took one shot and finished plus-1. That is a solid night in a narrow sense, not a certificate of flawless defending. It is also the sort of night Dallas needed with Miro Heiskanen out because of an upper-body injury.
Lundkvist’s assignment grew without becoming a solo audition to replace Heiskanen. Thomas Harley led the Dallas defense with 28:31, Esa Lindell played 26:05 and Tyler Myers logged 19:50. Lundkvist sat between those heavier workloads and the shorter nights of Lian Bichsel at 18:06 and Trey Taylor at 9:59.
The spread tells a more accurate story than plus-minus alone: Dallas redistributed responsibility, and Lundkvist took a substantial share of it.
The Stars allowed 30 shots, so this was hardly a defensive lockbox. Casey DeSmith stopped 29 over 65:00, and Columbus eventually won the shootout. Still, Dallas conceded only one goal in regulation.
Zach Werenski tied the game with the regulation clock down to 3:14, sending a backhand over DeSmith’s left pad after entering from the left circle. The goal erased Mikko Rantanen’s lead, but it did not turn Lundkvist’s larger workload into a visible problem.
A game this close leaves little room for a change of personnel to become an excuse. DeSmith’s 29 saves were essential, and the defense did not make his job disappear. Dallas nevertheless had a lead to protect late in regulation, then reached the end of overtime level.
Lundkvist’s larger contribution to the available minutes belongs in that account even though he did not produce a scoring play.
His plus-1 needs equally modest treatment. Dallas went ahead when Wyatt Johnston’s shot created a rebound that Rantanen finished 6:27 into the third. Lundkvist was on the ice for that goal, as the plus-minus records indicate, and Dallas briefly held the advantage.
Werenski later made it 1-1. A plus-1 can capture the favorable sequence while saying nothing about every decision made around it. It cannot certify that each defensive detail was clean.
The individual line sets some limits on the praise. Lundkvist recorded one shot and no blocks, so there is no basis for crediting him with a rush of offensive chances or repeated last-ditch stops. The solid case is the assignment itself: his coach used him for a season high while Heiskanen was unavailable.
That is an actual piece of added work, even if the scoring columns were blank.
