  The integrability of an m-component system of hydrodynamic type, u_t=V(u)u_x,
by the generalized hodograph method requires the diagonalizability of the mxm
matrix V(u). This condition is known to be equivalent to the vanishing of the
corresponding Haantjes tensor. We generalize this approach to hydrodynamic
chains -- infinite-component systems of hydrodynamic type for which the
infinite matrix V(u) is `sufficiently sparse'. For such systems the Haantjes
tensor is well-defined, and the calculation of its components involves finite
summations only. We illustrate our approach by classifying broad classes of
conservative and Hamiltonian hydrodynamic chains with the zero Haantjes tensor.
We prove that the vanishing of the Haantjes tensor is a necessary condition for
a hydrodynamic chain to possess an infinity of semi-Hamiltonian hydrodynamic
reductions, thus providing an easy-to-verify necessary condition for the
integrability.
