Custance: The impact of Spezza's benching and why it's not a problem unique to the Stars
By Craig Custance 23 minutes ago

It didn’t have the feel of a postgame interview focused on a guy who just scored two goals in helping his team win back-to-back games on the road. It was much more somber, right down to the way it was conducted.

Jason Spezza sat at a dressing room stall in the visitors room at Little Caesars Arena, with reporters sitting next to him on either side. A camera person crouched in front of him. A few more gathered around the fringes.

Spezza, for the first time in his career, was a healthy scratch on Monday against the Boston Bruins — $7.5 million in annual salary and more than 800 in career points sidelined because of a coach’s decision.

And, it wasn’t easy.

Not for the player.

“I was unhappy about it,” Spezza said after the Stars beat the Red Wings 4-2 on Tuesday night. “I didn’t like the decision but you have to get through that.”

Not for the coach.

“It’s a tough business,” Stars coach Ken Hitchcock said. “I’ve got to do what I’ve got to do. No matter how I do it, my job is to get 100 percent out of every player. That’s my job. I have to find a way to do it. When they play, I have to get 100 percent … that’s coaching up. You have to do that. If you’re going to be successful in the National Hockey League, you’ve got to coach people up. You have to use everything at your disposal. It’s not fun doing it.”

Neither Spezza or Hitchcock would share any details about the focus of the conversations that surrounded the benching. But Hitchcock has been around a bit. This isn’t his first public altercation with a skilled player and the friction tends to be centered around a few things.

Hitchcock is a coach who believes the most successful teams are those filled with players making second and third efforts. To Hitchcock, hockey is a game of sacrifice. Sometimes that sacrifice comes in the form of a relentless backcheck when the temptation is to coast. Sometimes it comes in physically playing with abandon while engaging the opposition and competing for the puck.

If you want to frustrate Hitchcock as a player, play a careful game. It’ll drive him crazy and it won't be tolerated all that long.

Stars GM Jim Nill sat and watched the veteran center he acquired and re-signed to a big deal from the spacious visiting management suite at Little Caesars Arena, a suite that must have felt so different from the countless games he was crammed into Joe Louis Arena while with the Red Wings organization.

While Hitchcock probably didn’t mind the extra attention being paid to Spezza, a motivating byproduct of making a prominent player a healthy scratch, Nill downplayed it. It’s how he’s wired — calm, introspective and careful to protect the people around him.

“I know people are going to make a big story out of it. He’s struggling, he’s been struggling a little bit. I think he’s a little bit frustrated,” Nill told The Athletic. “It’s not a big deal.”

This isn’t a new issue in Dallas. There have been multiple meetings between Spezza and the coaches. There have been numerous film sessions. Nill has been in constant communication with the big center.

That was the one thing Hitchcock would reveal after the game: You don’t scratch a player of Spezza’s caliber on a whim. This is a last resort.

For Spezza to be an impact player on a playoff contender, both coach and GM want to see evolution in his game.

“The game has changed,” Nill said. “The days of where he can stickhandle through the neutral zone are gone. There are 10 players in the neutral zone, everybody is backchecking. He knows that … that’s where the frustration has been — how can he be effective in different areas of the game?”

Both the Stars and Red Wings got a glimpse of what that can still look like from Spezza, who deftly tipped a John Klingberg shot for a goal and converted a gorgeous pass from Alexander Radulov for another.

“Where he’s good is when he gets down low, he’s dangerous again,” Nill said. “He just has to figure out how to get there.”

The flare-up with Spezza isn’t unique to the Dallas Stars. It’s hard to find an NHL roster that doesn’t have an aging player with a high salary that is figuring out how to make an impact in an evolving league. Chicago dealt with it recently with Brent Seabrook. Ottawa is dealing with it in Bobby Ryan, who still has four years remaining on a contract that pays him $7.25 million annually. The contract for Milan Lucic in Edmonton is aging quicker than GM Peter Chiarelli would probably prefer. How these teams navigate this issue could ultimately determine their big picture success this season and beyond.

It’s a complex problem. These players are often popular, well-respected guys in the dressing room. That’s certainly the case with Spezza.

After he was scratched, every teammate made a point of reaching out to him, to show their support.

“It really means a lot. It shows that the guys respect you and know I want to play,” Spezza said. “It didn’t go unnoticed. Every guy tried to pick me up. Every guy tried to encourage me. That’s something, I think, that stuff goes a long way.”

That makes a decision like Hitchcock’s a risky one. For instance, Klingberg is having a fantastic year. He’s a big reason behind the Stars' surge up the standings. He also credits Spezza for a lot of his success, explaining that Spezza mentored him immediately after he arrived in the NHL.

They play different positions but similar games. They like to have the puck. They like to make plays with the puck. So Spezza pulls Klingberg aside and shows him a few tricks he’s picked up over the years. They look for each other on the ice. There’s a trust and bond that has been built together.

Hitchcock knows that. There’s a fine line as a coach when a decision like this is made. The hope is you may spark the play of a talented veteran. The risk is that teammates don’t understand the reason behind it.

The joke in Dallas during Hitchcock’s first tenure with the Stars used to be that nobody united the team quite like Hitchcock. They all hated him.

That is, until they raised a Cup together.

It’s a delicate thing. For one night, the Stars received a payoff. Spezza conceded that he was playing more aggressively. Hitchcock also gave him time on the first power play. There’s a give and take while this team finds its way together.

“You’ve got to have respect for that veteran player. You have to hope you see change,” Hitchcock said. “This is always the last alternative. You hope it’s a starting off point and so far it looks like it is.”