Right player, right time: Why Chris Tanev makes perfect sense for Stars

You always hear about the right player at the right time.

Chris Tanev sure seems to be that guy for the Stars.

As we have prepared ourselves for the March 8 trade deadline, Stars fans have speculated that Tanev would be the perfect fit in Dallas. The team is light on right-handed defensemen, and there has been the thought that a top pairing blueliner like Tanev would allow the coaching staff to at least ponder a move of Miro Heiskanen back to the left side. The left-handed Heiskanen has been one of the league’s best all-around defensemen and has played much of his career on the right side. That’s not a horrible thing, and Heiskanen has handled it well, but I just think back to Jamie Benn playing center.

Former Stars GM Joe Nieuwendyk moved Benn from left wing to center when the Stars couldn’t get top-level pivots and the talented Benn did very well with the move. But when Jim Nill took over as GM in 2013, he went out and got Tyler Seguin and Jason Spezza and moved Benn back to the left wing. The captain went on to be named a first-team All-Star in 2014, a second-team All-Star in 2015, and a first-teamer again in 2016. The post-season “All-Star” team is the best player in the league at six positions. It is the best of the best, and the Minnesota/Dallas franchise had never had a first-team All-Star before Benn.

Not to mention winning the Art Ross Trophy as the League’s top scorer in 2015. That’s how impactful it was to move him back to his natural position.

Anyway, that’s getting ahead of ourselves on all of this.

Adding Tanev makes the Stars better right now. And as the team is battling through a tough spot in the schedule and watching the Central Division race grow airtight, they can definitely use the help. With Jani Hakanpää healthy and Nils Lundkvist getting better, the coaches could have three righties at their disposal. That’s a big deal.

Not to mention the fact Tanev will create even more competition on the blueline. Now, if a player is having a rough patch or simply needs a break, the coaches can sit them. It’s been that way on the fourth line for much of this season. Ty Dellandrea, Radek Faksa, Craig Smith and Sam Steel each have taken turns as a healthy scratch. Sometimes it was deserved, sometimes not, but it definitely proved motivational. You could tell when a player who had been scratched returned to the lineup. That’s the power of competition.

It’s interesting that the advancements by Thomas Harley this season have made it so the Stars could have settled for a player that was a notch below Tanev’s pedigree. Last season, Dallas had a lot of options and landed Evgenii Dadonov and Max Domi as trade deadline adds. Both were great. Could another forward have been better? Maybe, but the Stars didn’t want to give up the capital to get one of the bigger targets.

This year, we don’t have to ask that question. Tanev was the player everyone wanted, and for good reason. He’s 6-2, 193 and can play both a physical game and still keep up with a skilled partner. He has 14 points (1 goal, 13 assists) in 56 games, and is plus-16 this season with the Flames. He ranks second in the NHL in blocked shots at 171 and led the Flames in shorthanded time on ice at 2:36. He’s a warrior in every sense of the word and a “lay it all on the line” type of defenseman.

If you want to try him next to Heiskanen, that’s an option. If you want to pair him with Esa Lindell, that could work too.

Again, the fit just seems right.

And the cost was manageable. The Stars surrendered their second-round pick in 2024, a conditional third-round pick in 2026, a fourth-round pick in 2026, as well as defensive prospect Artem Grushnikov. The second-round pick is the cost of doing business, and Grushnikov is a fine prospect, but Dallas didn’t have to dip into bigger names in the system or ponder allowing first-round picks like Lundkvist or Dellandrea to be included. In addition, the Stars were able to take on just 25 percent of the remaining cap space for Tanev because they made it a three-way trade with New Jersey.

All of that’s important because it helps the team now and doesn’t hurt too much down the line.

Tanev is 34. He’s in the final year of his contract with a cap hit of $4.5 million. There’s a chance, if all of this works out, he might be able to sign an extension here and add value past just this season and the playoffs.

But even understanding that, he is the right player to help make the Stars a Stanley Cup contender right now.

To do that with 21 games left in the regular season . . . that's a really good place to be.

This story was not subject to the approval of the National Hockey League or Dallas Stars Hockey Club.

Mike Heika is a Senior Staff Writer for DallasStars.com and has covered the Stars since 1994. Follow him on Twitter @MikeHeika.