Stars will have to juggle centers, but it could be for the better with Martin Hanzal

FRISCO — Dallas Stars coach Ken Hitchcock and is going to have to do some center juggling this season.

When he was first hired Hitchcock spoke at lengths about how he plans to to turn Tyler Seguin into a true No. 1 center. Theoretically that would have worked well with Jason Spezza centering the second line, especially after Cody Eakin was taken by the Vegas Golden Knights in the expansion draft.

Add in Radek Faksa and it seemed like the Stars top-three centers were all but set for opening night.

Then the Stars signed Martin Hanzal on July 1, and someone is going to be moving to the wing. Hanzal was asked about moving to wing on Tuesday (he was in town along with Marc Methot getting a tour of the team facilities), and the 30-year-old was pretty adamant about his position.

“I never play wing,” he said. “So I’ll probably stay in the center.”

That means Spezza is probably on the move.

That might not be the worst thing. While it’ll take some buy in from Spezza, who is on the downswing of his career and can focus more on his offense with this potential setup. Spezza isn’t very good defensively, and there were times this past season that he showed occasional flashes of brilliance on the right wing — so playing on Hanzal’s wing could be the ideal fit.

Hanzal is also a better fit to center the second line in Hithcock’s system and he’s better on face-offs. Hanzal won 56.1 percent of his face-offs last season, while Eakin had Dallas’ best showing in face-offs at 52.3 percent.

Hanzal’s success on face-offs comes down to two things, preparation and experience. Before each game he watches video of opposing centers, while he has a history playing against the Western Conference’s top lines from his time with the Arizona Coyotes — Hanzal said off the top of his head he knows what most of the centers in the league would like to do on face-offs, his success comes from taking them out of their comfort zone.

“He’s tough to play against,” Stars general manager Jim Nill said. “That was one of the first things our players said when we signed him. They were glad they didn’t have to play against him anymore.”

Playing a big role was important to Hanzal before he signed with Dallas. That was amongst the first questions he asked the Stars in the interview process, and he’s going to be a staple on both the penalty kill and on the power play.

At 6-foot-6, 226 pounds Hanzal is tough to handle. It could be the first or second power play unit, but having Hanzal winning face-offs and then going straight to the net could be a good recipe for Stars new assistant coach and power play czar Stu Barnes.

The Czech is also expected to have a positive impact on the Stars locker room, which lost veterans Patrick Sharp and Ales Hemsky in the offseason.