Martin Hanzal is done for the season.
But in reality, his first season in Dallas never really got started.
After signing a three-year, $14.25 million contract back on July 1, Hanzal had eight different injuries that limited him to 38 games. The final injury, which ultimately rang the death knell on his season, was actually one of the first injuries and Hanzal has dealt with back issues since November.
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He received three injections during the season to help manage the pain, but ultimately it was too much to handle and Hanzal will have season-ending surgery. It’s a spinal fusion, Stars general manager Jim Nill said the recovery should take six to seven months, and his career is not supposed to be in jeopardy.
It was frustrating, but somewhat expected news. Especially after Stars coach Ken Hitchcock gave the slightly ominous hint on Thursday that he’d “let Jim handle that” when it came to an update on Hanzal.
When Hanzal played and was healthy he was effective, but because of the in-and-out nature of his season, he never had a chance to become what Hitchcock envisioned as a No. 2 center that created matchup nightmares for opponents. He was often coming off an injury, would play lesser minutes to ease his return to the lineup, and by the time he was actually up and running another injury would strike.
In an odd, but frustrating sense, Hanzal’s health problems allowed Radek Faksa to mature into a true second-line center this season. While Faksa’s line was often labeled as the third line, his group often receives the second-most minutes in a game, played against key opponents, and didn’t shy away from big minutes — he’s a second-line center with a third-line label.
That’s why losing Hanzal doesn’t really change things for the Stars.
“When he came back and played games he made us better as a team,” Faksa told The Athletic. “It’s a huge loss for us. But it doesn’t change what I have to do now, it’s the same thing that I’ve been doing all season.”
History may not smile upon Hanzal’s contract in Dallas. It will likely be picked apart quite a bit on social media, but Faksa said Hanzal deserves credit for his impact on his growth this season.
Like Ales Hemsky before him, Hanzal was the veteran Czech that Faksa could confide in.
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“We talked lots,” Faksa said. “It’s always nice to have someone from Czech in the same dressing room. Especially a guy like Martin, lots of experience and a great guy, it’s too bad it happens. Hopefully, he’ll get better and get ready for next season.”
Faksa has won a career-best 52.2 percent of his faceoffs this season, and most of them have come in the defensive zone. It’s not a coincidence that he’s having a career year in the circle after Hanzal, who won 55.1 percent of his draws this season, joined the team.
“In the start of the season he gave me some tips of what to do and things like that,” Faksa said. “After practice and days off things like that, we would talk about it. As a group we have some of the best centermen in the league here, so I can learn a lot from them and be more confident.”
In the Stars’ ideal world, both Czechs are healthy. And with Hanzal out permanently, Hitchcock said he has to embrace using Faksa in a different way.
“When Hanzal was playing in the two hole we had a great matchup going,” Hitchcock said. “So this is a different way, we’re using Faksa in a different vein now. I don’t know that it made it easier, but as coaches it gave us a better matchup. We were able to look for advantages rather than cover over people.”
Based on Friday’s morning skate and practice on Thursday, Faksa is going to get a chance to be more of an official second-line center going forward. After spending most of the season centering Antoine Roussel and Tyler Pitlick, Hitchcock has shifted Jamie Benn to the left wing on that line, and he’s hoping that it can be a somewhat permanent setup for a team searching for offensive variety.
“We’ve got to figure out the right way to play our lineup,” Hitchcock said. “One of the things we do try to avoid right now is doing what we did before, which is putting Benn back in the middle. We want to try to avoid that, but I think we’ll have a better evaluation after today (against the Anaheim Ducks).”
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Hitchcock said the Benn-Faksa-Pitlick line could bring tenacity, it could bring a heaviness to the game, and potentially give the Stars the appearance of having a true second line, which they’ve been looking for all season.
“We need to have a second line if we expect to go against these top dogs,” Hitchcock said. “So that’s what we’re trying to do.”
Faksa’s been making the most of opportunities all season, consider this the biggest window he could jump through.