Arizona Coyotes: Hanzal Ready For Injury-Free Year

By William Grigsby |

After Back Surgery In February, Arizona Coyotes Center Martin Hanzal Will Be Ready To Go This Season

When your back is killing you so badly that you can’t feel your leg, you know something is wrong. That’s how Martin Hanzal has felt for the last several seasons, and tried playing through it… without much success. He began to feel that pain and numbness around Christmas, and related it to his past experience with back pain.

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“I had pain that was shooting down my left leg and there were days where I couldn’t feel my leg,” he said. “They kind of cut the piece out that was pushing on my nerve and that was the reason I couldn’t feel my leg. Now it’s all good; all healed up.”

He finally had surgery in mid-February on his herniated disc, which had been operated on previously in July 2008. This after he missing seven months of action. His absence coupled along with Mikkel Boedker’s spleen surgery really put the Arizona Coyotes in a situation where the “retool” was put into affect.

After some recoup time and off-ice rehabilitation, Hanzal started skating a couple months ago, and said he will be ready to go when Coyotes training camp begins in early September.

“That was the reason I decided to go have the surgery during the season,” he said. “We knew where the season was going and we wanted to make sure I would be ready for camp.”

It’s been a while since Martin Hanzal has lite the red light, not scoring a goal since January 29th in Toronto. He’s aching to get back on the ice, and show that he can complete a full season; or at least improve on the number of games he can play without pain, now that his back is repaired.

Hanzal has two more seasons on his contract worth $3.5 million annually. He did have 24 points in the 37 games he played in last season, and some had been critical (myself included) about his poor durability. His coach, Dave Tippett, and his captain, Shane Doan disagree.

“When you look at the teams in our conference, he can play head-to-head with those big centers and he touches a lot of different situations for us,” coach Dave Tippett said. “In a hard game, he’s one of those guys that helps you win.”

Tippett also mentioned that Hanzal’s style of play, and the fact that he faces all the big, tough forwards night in and night out could easily make him susceptible to injury, but he hopes he can put the work in to keep strong, and take care of his health this next season.

“It’s frustrating for me, too that I haven’t played all 82 games,” he said. “It’s part of my job to take punishment. I’m a physical player and I’m trying to do my job as well as I can. Tip is counting on me every night. I want to make sure I’m not going to disappoint him.”

Hanzal will return from his homeland in the Czech Republic on Thursday and will start with some informal skates on Friday in hopes of improving on the Arizona Coyotes disastrous season last year.

And, maybe we’ll all see the Martin Hanzal we know can play like this:

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