Coyotes still wait for Martin Hanzal to play full year

When the Coyotes met one last time earlier this week before separating for the summer, they should have offered center Martin Hanzal a stash of bubble wrap after yet another injury-riddled season.

But finding a solution for the injury-prone 6-foot-6 pivot apparently isn't that easy.

"No, you can't do that," coach Dave Tippett said. "He's a good player when he's a hard, heavy player. That's who he has to be. If he doesn't play that way, he's not nearly as effective a player. We expect him to play hard, committed all the time. You just hope that the injury factor doesn't come into play."

In seven seasons of NHL work, Hanzal has yet to string together a complete 82-game campaign. He came close in 2009-10, dressing for 81 games, but since then, Hanzal has failed to top 65.

He reached that plateau this season, losing 15 games to injury and another two to suspension. During the lockout-shortened 2013 season, Hanzal missed only nine games. But from 2010 to 2012, he missed 21 games (including playoffs) in consecutive seasons.

"He's been on strength programs and back programs and groin programs," Tippett said. "There's lots of things you do. Some guys, for some reason, it just breaks down."

In comparison to his peers also drafted in the first round in 2005, Hanzal's 456 career games stand out as an established NHL career — one of approximately 15 from the top 30 who have accomplished that. But in contrast to other centers taken that round, his numbers fall short.

Anze Kopitar has 604 regular-season games on his record for the Los Angeles Kings, highlighted by five full seasons that include the one that just wrapped, but he has one more season in the league than Hanzal does.

Andrew Cogliano is a more appropriate example because he broke into the league at the same time as Hanzal and has never missed a game in seven seasons, splitting 540 games between the Edmonton Oilers and Anaheim Ducks.

In fairness, although both of these centers do mix a shutdown role into their responsibilities, neither is counted on to be as physically persistent as Hanzal. And that's where these injuries seem to originate.

"I think it's the style of the game I play because I'm trying to be physical," Hanzal said. "I'm trying to get energy for the team. That's what happens."

It's unrealistic to expect the Coyotes to stop asking Hanzal to play that way. When he's been healthy, he's been one of their more valuable forwards because of his ability to be a net-front presence all the while shadowing the other big men up the middle in the Pacific Division, such as Kopitar and San Jose's Joe Thornton.

But when he's missing ice time, as he did for stretches after the Olympic break this past season when dealing with a groin injury, the Coyotes suffer.

"When Marty's on, he touches so many areas of the game and really when you look at the second half, he was a nonfactor in the games," General Manager Don Maloney said.

The team's frustration is certainly matched by Hanzal. He has no qualms carrying out this role for the team, but he, too, hopes he's able to play at full strength more of the time.

"I want to win," he said. "So that's all I'm going to do in the summer time is more thinking and more working out and how to get better."