Willing to pay the price: New Oilers forward Zach Hyman may have a higher pay grade, but his s

May 30, 2024

It would have been inconceivable to most watching Zach Hyman’s collegiate and early pro career that one day he would become a highly sought-after NHL free agent.

Hyman never saw things that way.

Though he likens his career trajectory to a roller coaster, Hyman’s insatiable self-confidence always kept him solidly on track.

“I’ve always believed in myself,” he says. “If you don’t believe in yourself, no one will.”

Hyman, 29, received from the Oilers the second-largest total contract of this year’s free-agent class once the market opened July 28, years after struggling to find his footing at the University of Michigan and starting out in the NHL as an unheralded mucker.

Only Dougie Hamilton signed for more money in free agency than Hyman’s $38.5 million. Only Hamilton and Philipp Grubauer signed for higher average annual values than Hyman’s $5.5 million. (Phillip Danault and Jaden Schwartz each got $5.5 million AAV contracts but with less term than Hyman’s seven years.)

He priced himself out of the budget for the cap-crunched Maple Leafs, his hometown team, where he served as a complementary player alongside some of the game’s biggest stars in Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner, John Tavares and William Nylander.

A similar role awaits in Edmonton playing with Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl. Only the expectations are higher. No one will raise an eyebrow or question the coach if Hyman skates with McDavid and/or Draisaitl the way they did when he played with Matthews and Nylander as a rookie.

“If I would have not believed in myself and not continued to work and listen to the outside noise, then I wouldn’t be here,” Hyman says.

How Hyman fares in Edmonton will be a determining factor to whether or how the narrative changes around his new team.

The Oilers are a star-studded group, fronted by the NHL’s two most productive players. Yet they haven’t won a round in the past two playoffs, going 1-7 in that span. It’s not dissimilar to the Maple Leafs, who lost five straight series in Hyman’s time in Toronto.

With McDavid and Draisaitl in their primes and etching their names into individual trophies, the time for the Oilers to win is now.

“Edmonton was the perfect fit,” Hyman says. “There are a lot of parallels to Toronto.”

Hyman provides more offensive punch and a better-rounded game for the top six and myriad lineup options for the coaching staff. Barring a change, the plan for Wednesday’s season opener against the Canucks is for Hyman to skate with Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Kailer Yamamoto.

“It’s been really interesting to see him jell with our group,” coach Dave Tippett says. “It feels like he’s been here for a while. He’s one of those guys that we’ve got to get on the ice, get him in the rhythm of our lineup and see where he best fits — and the situations he fits best in — and allow him to be the best he can be.”

As Hyman’s former coach with the Michigan Wolverines, Red Berenson, says, “He’s the kind of guy you want on every line.”

Hyman could end up being the ultimate swingman and a key contributor on both special teams with the Oilers. He’d been outwardly pushing for this for a while in Toronto — but especially in his own mind.

“You have the ability to change the narrative based on how you play and how much you believe in yourself,” he says. “That’s something that’s really powerful.”

Hyman’s outlook wasn’t always so rosy.

He’d committed to play at Princeton University until a coaching change made him alter his plans. It was Wolverines assistant coach Billy Powers who scouted Hyman with the Hamilton Red Wings, where he would earn Junior A player of the year honours.

Powers wasn’t blown away by Hyman’s skill. He felt Hyman was a solid player with top-tier work ethic. That was how he was going to be successful, not by racking up offensive stats.

Hyman played 41 games that rookie season at Michigan. He played some centre, the way he did for Hamilton, but would begin his transition to the wing.

Ice time was hard to come by, and he recorded a measly nine points. Disappointed but not dejected, he met with Berenson in the coach’s office after the season.

Berenson was reassuring but firm. Hyman needed to focus more on his defensive game, limit his turnovers and carve out a niche as a “grinding scorer.”

“Zach had to learn the hard way,” Berenson says.

“He was right,” Hyman says.

“It was a learning process,” Berenson adds.

Hyman started to round out his game. He worked long hours with assistant coach Brian Wiseman, now on the Oilers staff, whom he says was influential in his development.

“I didn’t let my statistics deflate my confidence,” Hyman says. “I continued to work and push the envelope and be the best version of myself.

“My entire game is built on a foundation of work ethic and competitiveness.”

Berenson recalls an aha moment midway through Hyman’s collegiate tenure. Hyman came out of the corner with the puck, held on to it instead of throwing it away and drove around a defender to the net.

“Everybody looked at each other and said, ‘Wow, now that’s the player that we want to see Zach become,’” Berenson says. “And he did.”

It took until Hyman’s third season before he hit double digits in points. By his senior year, he was playing on a line with current Red Wing Dylan Larkin and acted as a mentor while racking up 22 goals and 54 points in 37 games.

“That was a strength of Zach Hyman’s. A lot of players would get discouraged. A lot of players would look to quit or go somewhere else or complain. But not Zach,” Berenson says. “He knew he could do better. He knew he would do better. He was willing to pay the price to do it.”

Since graduating and signing with Toronto, Hyman’s focus each year has been to find areas for improvement — namely offensively.

He felt he wasn’t capitalizing on chances early in his NHL career — he scored 10 goals with a 6.4 shooting percentage in his first full season in 2016-17 — so being more patient around the net and shooting to score rather than just hitting the goalie were front of mind.

Last season, he put an emphasis on challenging defencemen, especially when he realized he had a step on them. The result was 33 points in 43 games, a 0.77 point-per-game clip that was the best of his NHL career.

However, using the foundation he built at Michigan, the strength of Hyman’s game was his forechecking and work along the boards — something that promises to continue in Edmonton.

Hyman tries to get into a battle first whenever possible. When that’s not possible, he targets a defenceman’s stick or uses his hips to control body position and where the opponent can go.

“It’s work,” he says. “It’s been a big part of my game. It’s a big part of the reason that I was able to crack into the NHL my first year and stay there. Once you become an everyday NHL player, you continue to add layers and build your game out.”

Coming to Edmonton wasn’t an easy decision for Hyman.

Toronto is home and the place he chose to play following his senior year in college — after he decided not to sign with the Florida Panthers, the team that drafted him in the fifth round in 2010.

His family is there. So is the family of his wife, Alannah Mozes, his high school sweetheart who he married two years ago. Alannah was a lawyer on Bay Street, Toronto’s financial district. They have a 9-month-old son, Theo, who’s now farther away from extended loved ones.

But when the Leafs couldn’t make room for Hyman’s next contract under their salary cap, they gave him permission to talk to other teams in the hopes of facilitating a sign-and-trade. He and Alannah only travelled to Edmonton.

“Any time you change your workplace or your livelihood, it’s hard because you have to adjust and go outside what feels normal,” Hyman says. “At the same time, change is exciting.

“Once we visited, we knew we didn’t have to go and see any other teams.”

Hyman arrived in Edmonton the first week of September. Alannah and Theo came two weeks later once they got possession of the house they’re temporarily renting. The three of them are joined by their dog, Lady, a 2-year-old Husky, who’s been soaking up the rays in the backyard.

“She’s probably the happiest out of everybody,” Hyman says. “She’s loving life.”

Joining the Oilers also forced Hyman to pick a new jersey number. Hall of Famer Mark Messier’s No. 11 is strictly off limits in Northern Alberta. Hyman welcomed the change and opted for No. 18.

“I’m Jewish, and in Judaism, 18 is a lucky number; it’s chai, which means ‘life’ in Hebrew. I know a bunch of people in my community are really happy I chose that number,” Hyman says. “But really, it was for Theo because he was born on Dec. 18.”

Of course, there have already been changes on the ice, too. The initial forecast was that Hyman would skate alongside McDavid and Jesse Puljujarvi and give the Oilers two balanced lines. That’s how the first half of the preseason went. Now he’s with Nugent-Hopkins and Yamamoto.

Tippett could revert to that any day — and Hyman will no doubt be ready.

“He’s played with good players. It won’t overwhelm Zach Hyman,” Berenson says.

“He’s a coach’s player. He just knows what the team needs to do and what he needs to do. He can fill in the blanks for some of the high-end players and he can complement them. He doesn’t have to lead the line, but he will definitely do a lot of the work that has to be done to make the line successful.”

McDavid and Draisaitl are one of the league’s dynamic duos, but the Oilers need more from others when those two play together at five-on-five.

Per Natural Stat Trick, the Oilers outscored opponents 33-17 with McDavid and Draisaitl on the ice together in 2020-21. Without either of them, the Oilers were outscored 52-29. Overall, they were minus-1 as a team, in terms of five-on-five goal differential.

Hyman managed a 52.3 percent Corsi rate, a 66.7 percent goals-for rate and a 60 percent expected-goals rate last season. Away from Matthews, he had a 52.1 CF%, a 60.87 GF%, and a 56.83 xGF% — albeit on a good Toronto team.

Coming close to replicating those numbers while with Nugent-Hopkins would go a long way to fixing what’s been ailing the Oilers for years.

“We’ve been able to read off each other,” Nugent-Hopkins says. “We’ll grow that as we go along here. He’s a huge addition for us. He’s playing five-on-five, penalty kill, power play. You get a guy like that, that’s a big addition for our team.

“He creates a lot of loose pucks and makes plays. We have to hold onto that puck and play in the O-zone and be a real second-line threat.”

Tippett had a good idea of the type of player the Oilers were getting when general manager Ken Holland signed Hyman in July.

He envisioned an excellent forechecker, an effective penalty killer (so far with Nugent-Hopkins), a net-front power-play option (so far mostly the first unit) and someone who can move around the lineup.

What Tippett has found most rewarding is getting to know Hyman as a person.

“I’ve gone out to dinner with him and talked quite a bit. He’s a very intelligent guy,” Tippett says.

There are many layers to Hyman away from the rink. He owns two video game companies, Eleven Gaming and SoaR Gaming, which work with competitive players and connect content creators with corporations looking to reach that demographic.

He’s also a three-time children’s author. Tippett’s wife, Wendy, bought their grandson Hyman’s books. The overarching message in each one is what Hyman calls the “power of self-belief.”

It’s something he’s abided by as well.

“It’s not just a hockey thing. It’s a way-of-life thing,” Hyman says. “You’re always going to have doubters — whatever line of work you’re in, people who don’t believe in you or think that you’re crazy. If you believe in something and you believe that you can do it, go do it.”

But getting to the point where Hyman earned a seven-year contract for $38.5 million? Well, not even Berenson, one of his staunchest supporters, could have predicted that. Berenson figured Hyman would have his hands full proving himself in the NHL.

Prove it Hyman did, though. And he has no intentions of being finished yet.

“Every year, I continued to develop, and then slowly but surely, I got better every year,” he says. “Now, I’m looking to take the next step.”

(Photo: Codie McLachlan / Getty Images)

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