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Building off a breakthrough: Radek Faksa

St Louis Blues v Dallas Stars - Game One

DALLAS, TX - APRIL 29: Radek Faksa #12 of the Dallas Stars skates onto the ice to be recognized after the Stars beat the St. Louis Blues 2-1 in Game One of the Western Conference Second Round during the 2016 NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs at American Airlines Center on April 29, 2016 in Dallas, Texas. (Photo by Tom Pennington/Getty Images)

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Each day in the month of August we’ll be examining a different NHL team -- from looking back at last season to discussing a player under pressure to focusing on a player coming off a breakthrough year to asking questions about the future. Today we look at the Dallas Stars.

In the case of Radek Faksa, you can probably argue this as a bit of a cheat, as there’s a case to be made that his breakthrough happened in 2016-17. His numbers, both in the simplest terms and if you get into the woods with analytics, are quite comparable. In some cases, he took a step back last season.
[Looking back at 2017-18]

That’s actually the point the Stars should consider, though: there’s a chance that Faksa could have taken yet another step in 2017-18. If Faksa and the Stars want to go further, they might both benefit from taking a long, hard look at how they’re using the 13th pick of the 2012 NHL Draft.

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 59.3 percent the previous year. The 24-year-old also topped all Stars forwards by averaging 1:59 in penalty kill time per game.

It’s no surprise, then, that Faksa received more underground Selke hype than ever.

Back in February, Defending Big D’s Derek Neumeier made a compelling case for Faksa to at least receive more attention:

To summarize what all of these numbers mean: Despite constantly starting shifts in his own zone against tough competition, Faksa is astonishingly good at stopping the other team from producing shots and scoring goals. Opposing teams simply don’t generate offense when they have to go through Faksa’s line to make it happen.

That’s good stuff, and if you tend to fall down rabbit holes in Hockey Twitter (meekly raises hand), you’ve probably heard some praise - maybe couched in “give my guy attention” - for Faksa during the past year or so.

The tantalizing question, however, is: will Jim Montgomery do a better job getting the most out of Faksa?

It’s understandable that Ken Hitchcock would want to lean so heavily on Faksa. As progressive as Hitch is, he’s probably a bit more rooted in players specializing with certain roles, hence Faksa experiencing an even more extreme defensive burden.

Still, for a Stars team that’s desperately needed help outside of an all-world top line, it’s baffling that Faksa wasn’t given more opportunities.

Most directly, it’s head-scratching stuff that Faksa went from averaging 16:10 TOI per game in 2016-17 to just 15:16 in 2017-18. It’s impressive that Faksa has been able to score 30+ points these past seasons, considering context, but especially so as he scored 17 goals last season.

It’s pretty much impossible - for me, anyway - to avoid a best-case scenario comparison, then: what if the Stars make Radek Faksa their answer to Sean Couturier?

Now, it’s true that Couturier still carried a considerable defensive workload in 2017-18, yet the Flyers frequently surrounded him with better teammates and also gave him way, way more ice time. For three seasons, Couturier had averaged about 18-and-a-half minutes per contest; last season, his ice time skyrocketed to 21:36 per game.

The Stars should absolutely experiment with different ways to get Faksa on the ice more often, ideally rewarding him for doing all of that dirty work by giving him better chances to score. While Faksa would probably struggle to land on Dallas’ top power play unit, it’s probably not outrageous to give him more than last season’s paltry average of 14 seconds of PP time per game.

For years, the Stars have failed to convert “winning the off-season” into regular-season and playoff successes.

Part of those failings can be chalked up to roster issues - they’ve rarely provided Benn, Seguin, and John Klingberg with strong supporting cast members - but you can also argue that the cooks on hand haven’t made the best use of the ingredients on hand.

It’s quite plausible that Faksa could be even better than the already-quite-effective defensive player he is. He’s managed to score in tough circumstances. Why not give him a chance to take off in 2018-19?

The Stars could very well break through with him.

James O’Brien is a writer for Pro Hockey Talk on NBC Sports. Drop him a line at phtblog@nbcsports.com or follow him on Twitter @cyclelikesedins.