Arttu Hyry on Being Back in the NHL, the Intuitive Side of Faceoffs, and Getting Punched in the Face

Since his first go-round at the top level, Hyry has learned a few things

Photo Credit: Amanda Spielberger

The Dallas Stars have used a lot of draft picks in recent seasons by making moves at the trade deadline. Dealing picks is one of the easiest ways to improve an NHL club in the near-term, and that’s exactly what the Stars have done over their recent three-in-three Western Conference finals run.

But that success (and the trades that have supported it) has led to Dallas having fewer picks to make at the draft itself, which has thinned out their prospect pool as a result. The fewer players you draft, the fewer prospects you have. It’s simple math, right?

Well, that’s where scouting becomes so critical. Because despite having fewer resources at the draft table in recent seasons, the Stars have still managed to find important players to round out their prospect pool outside of the draft.

One of those players is Trey Taylor, who has been a key defenseman for the Texas Stars since signing with the organization about a year ago. Another such player is Justin Hryckowian, who quite literally had the best rookie season of any player in the AHL last year—and who has gone on to play a key role for the NHL club this season.

Another such player got into his first NHL game of the season on Wednesday: Arttu Hyry¹ who has been called into duty as a fourth-line center while Radek Faksa remains on the shelf after suffering an upper-body injury at the Olympics.

Faksa, along with Roope Hintz (illness) will remain out of the lineup against Nashville tonight, which means Hyry will once again be asked to play a solid 10-11 minutes of NHL duty. And after seeing Hyry go 6-for-8 in the faceoff circle and play a quietly solid 10:25 on Wednesday (including some time on the penalty kill), Gulutzan is sending Hyry right back out against Nashville on Saturday night.

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When the Stars signed the undrafted Hyry in April of 2024, he profiled largely as a depth addition with some upside. Considering the Stars’ long organizational history of turning underrated Finnish players into key NHLers, there seemed at least an outside chance that the 23-year-old forward could be a useful piece in the minors who could occasionally fill in at the NHL level. But projecting him as much beyond that was tough to do, especially for a team in the middle of a Cup window like Dallas.

Last year was a good example of just that sort of scenario. Hyry got a five game run in January of 2025 on Pete DeBoer’s team, playing on a line with Oskar Bäck and Colin Blackwell. Hyry tallied one assist in five games, playing 7-9 minutes in four of those contests.

There was no way for him to know it, but he wouldn’t get back to the NHL for another 13 months.

In his recall this time around, Hyry is still going to be lower in the lineup, but he’s now filling in for a key player in a pivotal role. And while that may only mean 9 or 10 minutes, Hyry told me this morning that he is also enjoying some of the advantages of a smaller role.

In the AHL, Hyry said he typically plays closer to 20 minutes when healthy (though he’s been closer to 15 or 16 when he’s getting eased back into the lineup after missing time). That means he needs to be ready to take another shift after, say, a 90-second breather, which affects how you expend your effort. You want to play hard, but you also can’t sprint full-throttle for every second of every shift for 20 minutes a night.

But when you’re on a fourth line, you generally have more time between shifts, and less of them overall. That fact allows someone like Hyry to go all-out in ways he can’t always do in bigger roles—something he’s found himself enjoying.

That may not mean more offense, necessarily, but it does mean he’s not holding back. Besides, scoring isn’t the focal point of Hyry’s game at the NHL level—at least, for now.

Still, there’s latent offense in Hyry’s game, as he’s shown in recent years. He was fifth in scoring on his Karpat team, and he would go on to finish sixth in scoring in his first year in AHL Texas.

At 6-foot-1 and about 210-lbs, his size allows him to score fairly often in the fray around the net, and his 24 goals last year were second on his Texas team, ahead of even Hryckowian, Kole Lind, and Cameron Hughes.

But scoring in the AHL isn’t the same as doing it in the NHL. That’s why Hyry’s hockey IQ, faceoff prowess, and responsible defensive play also made him a key forward for Neil Graham’s Texas Stars last season, and why Glen Gulutzan said earlier this week that Hyry was always on his radar.