While the Dallas Stars had a disappointing season last year under Ken Hitchcock, there are silver linings to be found, such as the breakout campaign by Radek Faksa. Although his time on ice actually decreased from 16:10 the previous season to 15:16, it was clear that the head coach relied heavily on the young Czech:
To put things mildly, Faksa was used in a heavy defensive role these past two seasons, but that went to an extreme during Ken Hitchcock’s lone season (version 2.0) with Dallas. Faksa began a whopping 66.6 percent of his shifts in the defensive zone, up from an already hearty 59.