The Blackhawks wanted Michal Handzus for depth at the 2013 trade deadline. They got their ‘Dr. Seuss’ and much more.

BOSTON, MA - JUNE 24:  Michal Handzus #26, Marian Hossa #81 and Andrew Shaw #65 of the Chicago Blackhawks celebrate with the Stanley Cup in the locker room after his team defeated the Boston Bruins 3-2 in Game Six of the 2013 Stanley Cup Final at TD Garden on June 24, 2013 in Boston, Massachusetts. The Chicago Blackhawks won the series 4-2 to win the Stanley Cup.  (Photo by Dave Sandford/NHLI via Getty Images)
By Scott Powers
Apr 8, 2021

Jonathan Toews approached Michal Handzus before Game 6 of the 2013 Stanley Cup Final in Boston and had some news for him.

If the Blackhawks won that night, Toews was going to hand the Stanley Cup to Handzus first.

Handzus immediately panicked.

“I was like, ‘Don’t tell me that. I don’t care if you hand it to me as the last one. Let’s just focus on the win,'” Handzus said.

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Toews didn’t care. He had told Marian Hossa the same thing in 2010 — Hossa had about the same worried reaction as Handzus — and everything worked out. It had become a tradition.

And everything would work out again. The Blackhawks pulled off a miraculous comeback during a 17-second span in the third period, and Toews handed Handzus the first and only Stanley Cup of his 15-year NHL career.

“You play for so long, and I played for so long, and a couple years before, I probably finally said to myself, ‘Maybe it’s not my time to lift it anytime (soon),'” Handzus said by phone this week from Slovakia. “I missed opportunities to win it in Philadelphia and L.A., so I thought maybe it’s not my thing. All of a sudden to win, it was unbelievable.”

As the NHL trade deadline approaches, Handzus is a reminder of what a deadline deal can do for a Stanley Cup contender. The Blackhawks acquired the 36-year-old Handzus from the San Jose Sharks for a fourth-round pick on April 1, 2013. It was considered a depth trade for the Blackhawks, but it became so much more.

This is how the trade came together and what it ended up meaning for the Blackhawks and Handzus:

The Blackhawks were in a great spot at the deadline. They had a 27-7-5 record as of April 1 and were the favorite to win the Stanley Cup. They were just looking for a depth addition. They thought a forward, someone who could play up and down the lineup and take faceoffs, could help them in a playoff run. They were especially seeking someone who wouldn’t disrupt their chemistry on and off the ice.

The Blackhawks were familiar with Handzus in various ways. He had played for Blackhawks coach Joel Quenneville with the St. Louis Blues early in his career and spent the 2006-07 season with the Blackhawks. Chicago had also scouted Handzus in the playoffs in previous seasons.

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Handzus’ name came up when discussing possible additions. The question was whether Handzus was still the same player they remembered. He hadn’t played well for the San Jose Sharks that season and wasn’t even playing much. He was a healthy scratch for six consecutive games.

“In talking to our scouts, it was a little bit of an imagination because if you were just basing it on his performance in the moment, there was nothing to really get excited about,” Blackhawks general manager Stan Bowman said. “But what we asked them to do was kind of envision: If this player’s playing at his best, and if he’s on top of his game, how can he help our team? If you watch the player with that mind, you start to realize, well, he’s not getting the opportunity here; however, he still has those instincts.

“He had slowed down at that point. He was never really a speedy player as a bigger guy, but he had slowed down by the point that we got him. But I think the biggest thing with him is you can call it his hockey sense or his instincts or the way he could read the play.”

The Blackhawks thought he could be a fit on the ice. How about off it? Bowman asked Hossa, who knew Handzus well from playing with him on Slovakia’s national team.

“I told him, ‘I think that’s a guy you can rely on,’ because he’s not like somebody who’s going to come to Chicago and party,” Hossa said. “He’s more family-oriented, really low-key, quiet guy in the room. But on the ice, he leaves everything on it, especially on the penalty kill. He sacrifices his body. I basically told him everything I knew about Zus because we were playing in the under-20s together and the national teams together.”

Handzus didn’t know Hossa and the Blackhawks were discussing him. Handzus was just hoping to get out of San Jose before the trade deadline. He had played in Slovakia during the lockout and thought he still had plenty to give the Sharks when the season began. It just didn’t work out.

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“They weren’t happy, and I wasn’t happy,” Handzus said. “My contract was up, so we kind of figured out I’ll get traded. The only question was where. … I needed to change. I knew I hadn’t played my game. I knew I hadn’t helped the team over there. I knew a change would be good for me, and I knew the team wouldn’t sign me after the year, so they wanted to move me also. I think it was both sides that wanted to part.”

One obstacle was Handzus’ no-movement clause. Sharks general manager Doug Wilson had to clear any trade destination with Handzus, and Handzus wasn’t willing to go just anywhere.

“There was one more team that was really interested in me,” Handzus said. “I think they offered more than Chicago. I think Doug Wilson and San Jose was really great about this thing. He knew I wanted to go to Chicago. (The) San Jose organization is very classy, and Doug is very classy. He knew what I wanted, and he made it (happen).”

Bowman offered a fourth-round pick for Handzus, and Wilson accepted the deal.

“I talked to Doug about it; those are the types of players that teams like ours at the time were interested in,” Bowman said. “It’s not always the flashy guy. It’s a depth trade. You don’t have a pay price to get those players, and they weren’t really going to ask for a lot because they had no way to justify a high asking price because he wasn’t, really.”

Said Wilson on Wednesday via text: “Very pleased to be able to get Michal Handzus to where he wanted to go to and probably took a little less than what the best offer would be, but that’s the kind of respect I had for the person he was.”

Wilson would later trade the fourth-round pick — the 111th overall — back to the Blackhawks, along with a 2014 fifth-round pick, for the 117th and 151st overall picks. The Sharks selected goalie Fredrik Bergvik at No. 117 and defenseman Gage Ausmus at No. 151. The Blackhawks drafted defenseman Robin Norell at No. 111 and defenseman Luc Snuggerud the following season.

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When Handzus arrived in Chicago, he and Quenneville picked up where they left off in St. Louis. Quenneville even carried over his nickname of “Doctor Zus” as a play on Dr. Seuss.

Quenneville texted on Wednesday, “Dr. Seuss, like the books, it was a good story while it lasted.”

Handzus played fourth-line wing in his first game with the Blackhawks, the role they expected him to. On April 22, Dave Bolland, who had centered the second line, suffered an injury. The next game, Quenneville gave rookie Drew LeBlanc a look with Patrick Sharp and Patrick Kane on the second line. That lasted only part of the first period before Handzus got a chance with that line.

“Joel just told me before the game: ‘Be ready. I might just put you in there in the second line, but I’ll give a shot to another center, and if it’s not working, just be ready and I’ll put you there,'” Handzus said. “I think after 10 minutes he put me there and we scored three goals, and it just kind of sticked.”

The rest is history. Handzus had three assists on that line in that game. The second line scored again the next game in the regular-season finale. In the playoffs, Handzus had three goals and eight assists in 23 games. The Blackhawks outscored their opponents 15-9 in five-on-five play in the playoffs with Handzus on the ice.

Kane will certainly never forget Handzus’ impact.

“Good defensively, good on faceoffs, could let guys like me and Sharpy do most of the puck possession and carrying of the puck, and he would get to the net as well,” Kane said recently. “When we acquired him, we didn’t foresee that he would be the second-line center. But I give him so much credit: He just battled throughout that whole playoff series in 2013 and the next year as well. He just gave it everything he had and everything his body could give him. It was pretty impressive to see what he was playing through and how he was able to do it.”

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Yes, the toll on Handzus’ body is worth noting. In the Blackhawks’ second-round series against the Detroit Red Wings in 2013, he tore his ACL and a ligament in his wrist. He never stopped playing that postseason.

“I had a couple pretty bad ones — pretty much was it for me in the NHL because I couldn’t recover after that, especially my hand,” Handzus said. “I tried to make the most of it in the run. It was maybe tough physically, but it never bothered me at all to just perform at a high level. Obviously, the off-ice stuff I needed to get ready for a game took long hours. I had to really push myself to be ready for every game because of the injuries. You know, anybody would do it for a chance to win the Cup. For me, it was memorable because I remember that time because I was pretty much sitting in the cold tub or getting ice bags. But it was fun in another way. The pain never bothered me much, but there was a bigger goal in my eyes.”

The Blackhawks re-signed Handzus to a one-year deal for the 2013-14 season. He nearly helped them back to the Stanley Cup Final, but they lost to the Los Angeles Kings in the Western Conference finals. Handzus played three more seasons in Slovakia and officially retired after the 2014-15 season.

He has since moved on to his second hockey career: coaching. Handzus is an assistant coach for Slovakia’s national team and helps with player development with his local team. He just prepared for the upcoming World Championship. He also assists with player development for his hometown team.

“It’s fun,” Handzus said. “It’s still the game. I’m glad I’m still around the game.”

Bowman was “pleasantly” surprised by Handzus’ impact on the Blackhawks’ Stanley Cup run, but he’s less surprised by Handzus’ post-playing career.

“I’ve kept in touch with Michal a bit as well. I think he’s got a career in that because he’s such a smart (person). He’s got a really good temperament, too. He’s almost like a wise old man. He’s very smart. He’s very more deliberate when he talks. He’s just got a nice way about him. I like his demeanor and his personality. That was another part he brought to his team — that experience. We had a lot of experience that year, so it’s not like we needed a veteran, but I think he was sort of the perfect final piece to the puzzle that year.”

(Photo: Dave Sandford / NHLI via Getty Images)

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Scott Powers

Scott Powers is a senior writer for The Athletic covering the Chicago Blackhawks. Previously, he covered the Blackhawks and the White Sox for ESPN Chicago. He has also written for the Daily Herald and the Chicago Sun-Times and has been a sportswriter in the Chicagoland area for the past 15 years. Follow Scott on Twitter @byscottpowers