Zach Hyman
by Philip van Riesen
Age: 27
Role: Zach Hyman has played the role of the forechecking and puck retrieval specialist on lines with noted star players, Auston Matthews, William Nylander, Mitch Marner and John Tavares over the course of the past three years with the Toronto Maple Leafs.
Last Season: The 2018-2019 season is Hyman’s career year to date, putting up 41 points, along with 21 goals (though he was the league leader in empty-net goals) in only 71 games. To continue, Hyman also drove play better last season then he ever has, creating more scoring chances for his team and tilting the ice in the Leafs favour, giving his linemates a better chance to outscore the opposition and fulfilling exactly what his role is supposed to be.
Expectations: Hyman’s expectations moving forward shouldn’t be focused on points because that isn’t his specialty, but given we expect him to be playing with Tavares and Marner again, we should expect a pace of 15 goals over 82 games.
Many may ask, “Why not 20? He did it last season and should only improve.” Well in reality the whole line of Hyman-Tavares-Marner shot at an unsustainable rate of 10.82% which is a shooting percentage that a line with the best shooter of this generation Alex Ovechkin with one of the best playmakers in Nicklas Backstrom can not sustain. (all stats naturalstattrick.com).
At 5v5 the Hyman-Tavares-Marner line scored a total of 53 goals, outscoring their xG by 11.62 (xG-is based on shot location, for reference a shot from near the point is worth close to a 0.014xG), now we should expect a line with elite players to outscore their xG, but not by a degree this high. In otherwords we should expect Hyman’s point totals to regress slightly after a lucky 2018-2019 season.
What He Needs to Meet Expectations: For Hyman to meet expectations, he needs to be come back strong from his injury. He also needs to regain/hold onto his spot on the Marner/Tavares line.