Zach Hyman by James Tanner
Zach Hyman is a great player playing too high up in the lineup, is something I have thought all season long. I respect the things he brings to the game – his tenacity, his ability to drive play – but I also feel like in a weird way we, as NHL fans, have been conditioned to under-appreciate offense, and that another 10 or 15 points would be better than what Hyman is bringing to the table.
Hyman had a good year – a positive possession rating relative to his team, and 20 goals and 21 assists in 71 games. The question is, however, did he have a good year for playing where he played? His points per hour rate is very good, but shouldn’t it be higher playing with the two guys ranked 4th and 5th? (Once again, all stats for this entire piece are from naturalstattrick.com).
Normally, we could look at WOWY stats (With You Without You) to determine how his line-mates performed without him, but of the 1000 5v5 minutes John Tavares played, only 93 of them were without Hyman.
Hainsey and Rielly each played about half their minutes with Hyman and without him, and they put up better numbers without him.
The 20 goals are nice, but they also include six empty netters. (Led the NHL).
Overall, Tavares scored 60 5v5 points, and Marner scored 58. Hyman had just 33.
If the Toronto Maple Leafs had a player who could match the points the other two members of this line put up, there is no possible way that Tavares and Marner score less. If Hyman has intangibles worth 25 points, I’ll eat my hat.
There is just no way this player should be in this role. He’s a good penalty killer though, and I like him a lot, so I’ll give him a generous C+.