Confirmed with Link: The Zach Hyman Appreciation Thread

[HamiltonNHL]

Grieving over yet?

No.

And the Globe felt Hyman was a Centre in Toronto.

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HOCKEY
Edmonton Oiler Zach Hyman proving to be worth every penny of $38.5-million contract after leaving Maple Leafs
As the Maple Leafs struggled to win a playoff round, there was plenty of blame to go around.
Most recently, fans blamed Mitch Marner. Then Frederik Andersen. Before that, Auston Matthews. At all times, William Nylander.
Never once did the team’s followers castigate Zach Hyman. Never did even the most disappointed among them suggest trading the hard-working forward.
Over six years, he became a favourite, not because he is an elite talent but because he brought grit and tenacity that was otherwise in short supply, and because he also scored his share of goals.
As his contract neared its conclusion, the organization was confronted with a difficult decision last summer. Like anyone who believes they have a done a good job, Hyman felt he deserved a higher salary.
Although this is Monopoly money for most of us, he was likely underpaid at US$2.25-million a season for the four preceding years. By comparison, Alex Kerfoot, one of the Maple Leafs’ role players, produces less and earns 50-per-cent more.
In the end, Toronto decided Hyman’s demand for more money over a good many years was too rich, and he became an unrestricted free agent.
There were many suitors but one interested him in particular.
“If I wasn’t going to play in Toronto, I knew I wanted to be in Edmonton,” Hyman said this week. “It is a market that loves hockey, has elite players and has a chance to win.
“I want to win a Stanley Cup and it was a place where I felt that was possible. You win championships with great players.”
That was not so much a swipe at Marner, Matthews & Co. as it is praise for Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl.
Edmonton ponied up US$38.5-million to lock up Hyman for seven years – US$5.5-million annually. That is a lengthy contract for a 29-year-old who has never scored more than 21 goals and it could turn out to be a bad deal long term.
For the moment, though, it looks as though Hyman is worth every penny. He moved from playing centre in Toronto to left wing in Edmonton and has eight goals and three assists as the Oilers surged to a 10-2 start.
The Maple Leafs were 8-5-1 as they headed into a game at home on Friday night against Calgary but have yet to find anyone to replace Hyman’s presence in those dirty spaces around the net.
They paid the beefy Nick Ritchie US$2.5-million just for that purpose – again, more than they had paid Hyman previously – and he has just two assists. When he got one in a victory over Philadelphia on Wednesday, it was treated like a hat trick.
Combined, Toronto’s stable of left wings has three fewer goals than Hyman.
Perhaps he has found the pot of gold that awaits someone pesty like him when deployed on the NHL’s most lethal power play. Perhaps it was just that he needed a change of scenery.
On the day that he signed with the Oilers he got a call from McDavid to welcome him and received an invitation to join him and some of his other new teammates in off-season training sessions with fitness guru Gary Roberts.
Other members of the group included Darnell Nurse, Warren Foegele and Devin Shore.
“Working out and getting to know those guys in summer was really beneficial,” Hyman says. “It made the transition a lot easier.”
Hyman and his wife, Alannah, moved to Edmonton in September with their now 11-month-old son, Theo, and bought a home in the North Saskatchewan River Valley. He enjoys his new surroundings – it’s not quite winter yet in northern Alberta – and is thrilled that both he and the team are off to a fast start.
“For sure, you want to go to a team and contribute right away,” Hyman said. “It was what I hoped for, and for continued success.”
Hyman had 86 goals and 99 assists in 345 regular-season games with the Maple Leafs and five goals and eight assists in 32 playoff games during his six-year NHL career, which began in the 2015-16 season.
Hyman said he went into a funk after Toronto’s first-round loss to Montreal earlier this year. It was the fourth time in five years that the team got bounced out of the playoffs in the first round. In the COVID-19 interrupted other year, it lost in the Stanley Cup tournament’s qualifying round.
Now, everything seems possible in Edmonton, a town that has also seen its share of disappointments. The Oilers have reached the playoffs only twice in the past 15 years – both times after McDavid joined the league in 2016.
With the exception of the 2021 season when Toronto played Edmonton 10 times within the all-Canadian North Division, Hyman had only got to play against McDavid and Draisaitl in bits and pieces.
“When you play with them, you get a different perspective,” Hyman says. “They are both guys who can do things that nobody else can.
“It’s nice not to have to play against them, that’s for sure.”
A week ago, he was on the bench late in the third period, when McDavid beat four New York Rangers’ players single-handedly and scored the tying goal in an eventual overtime victory.
“It was pretty incredible,” Hyman says. “It was probably the best goal I have ever seen live. Not just the way he did it, but in the moment.”
He hasn’t had a lot of opportunities to watch the Maple Leafs. He has no bad feelings and wishes them well.
“I have a lot of friends on the team, so I check in and touch base every so often,” he says. “It’s good to see them doing well.”
THEGLOBEANDMAIL.COM

Edmonton Oiler Zach Hyman proving to be worth every penny of $38.5-million contract after leaving Maple Leafs — The Globe and Mail


For further discussion taking it here: GDT: - Around the League - 2021/22 Season