What happens when you play Heinola and teams start targeting him on forecheck (you better believe that will happen) he's going to get punished both physically and mentally.
People say there's size discrimination, but that is a mischaracterization. It's strength. There a reason there's not a lot of 175 lb defensemen in the league and its not discrimination. If you can't handle the physical demands of wall work, battles, and forecheck pressure, you're going to get eaten up.
Stanley struggles with this too even at his size. Enstrom was a small defenseman, but he had good strength, a great stick, and an innate ability to use his opponents weight against them. He also had incredible escapability which protected himself most of his career.
These are Heinolas weaknesses in his own zone. He has incredible talent, and open ice with no pressure he is absolutely talented enough to excel in the league.
In the Central, and Western Conference overall, teams use size and speed to aggressively and physically forecheck, and our team has not been good at handling that the past few years. Adding heinola is not going to help with that. Sure, good passing and quick exit decisions will mitigate it somewhat, but Heinola will get overwhelmed in situations where there is a forecheck that involves multiple forwards supporting each other and cutting off lanes.
There are also situations where Heinola has made panicked passes in that situation or overhandled the puck leading to turnovers and that was in exhibition, against teams that weren't even full nhl lineups.
People like to think that a smaller defenseman just needs to be skilled to play in the nhl, but that's simply not the case. Just as only being big doesn't make you successful in the nhl.
Of course the old school management still defers to size over skill, but the old adage is still true, you can't teach size.
I'm not advocating for Stanley over Heinola, but Samberg is far better at handling forecheck pressure and making the right decision in our zone than Ville. That's what the team needs if we are to improve our play in our own zone which I think everyone will agree is our biggest weakness