This is the 2022-23 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →

Zach Hyman

The 5th-closest shot chart of the 393 qualified forwards, and the 24th-lowest ground covered of the 365 the tracking follows.

Season	Team	GP	G	A	PTS	+/-	PIM	PP	SH	GW	S	S%	TOI

2015-16	TOR	16	4	2	6	0	18	0	0	0	37	10.8	15:41
2016-17	TOR	82	10	18	28	+2	30	0	4	3	156	6.4	16:42
2017-18	TOR	82	15	25	40	+22	37	0	1	2	148	10.1	17:21
2018-19	TOR	71	21	20	41	+16	65	0	1	4	144	14.6	17:17
2019-20	TOR	51	21	16	37	+13	23	3	1	1	106	19.8	19:06
2020-21	TOR	43	15	18	33	+19	28	3	0	4	115	13.0	19:22
2021-22	EDM	76	27	27	54	-9	36	5	1	4	213	12.7	19:28
2022-23 so far	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—
Career	—	421	113	126	239	+63	237	11	8	18	919	12.3	17:57

This Season So Far

The 2022-23 season has not started. The empty row above is his, and both it and this paragraph fill in on their own from the morning after he first plays: what he has done, what it is worth against his own last season, and the run he is on when the two disagree.

Last Season

27 goals and 27 assists in 76 games — 54 points, both a career high, with a minus-9 and 36 penalty minutes at 19:28 a night, the 92nd percentile among forwards. 1:47 a night short-handed is the 85th percentile.

53.3 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 1,134 minutes, the 75th percentile. His ice went 47-54 against an expectation of 56.01-49.04 — nine fewer goals for than the chances promised and five more against, which is the largest negative gap of any Oiler forward.

Sixteen playoff games for 11 goals, more than anybody on the club scored except Evander Kane.

The Finesse Game

70 per cent of his shots came from the slot, the 10th-highest share of the 393 qualified forwards, at a median of 15 feet — the 5th-closest shot chart in the league. Only Julien Gauthier, Paul Stastny, Corey Perry and Rem Pitlick shot from closer.

That is the entire job and he does it better than almost anyone. Twenty-seven goals on 213 shots is 12.7 per cent, the 64th percentile — ordinary conversion from extraordinary locations, which is a repeatable way to score.

84.7 mph is the 53rd-softest recorded shot of the 365 qualified forwards. He does not beat goaltenders with the shot; he beats them with where he is standing.

2.07 even-strength points per 60 is the 67th percentile with only 19 per cent of his points on the power play — on the best power play in the league, he is the least dependent on it of any Oiler top-six forward.

The Physical Game

6-1 and 206. 3.00 hits per 60 is the 37th percentile and 1.26 blocks the 27th. The reputation is for a heavy forechecking game and the hit count does not carry it.

8.97 miles per 60 is the 24th-lowest of the 365 forwards the tracking covers, and 9.9 bursts over 20 mph per 60 is the 87th percentile, against a 22.7 mph top speed at the 70th. He covers very little ground and sprints constantly over it — short, hard, straight-line shifts to a spot in front of the net.

0.73 penalties taken per 60 is the 61st percentile.

The Intangibles

One hundred and twenty-third overall in 2010, the fifth round, and 421 NHL games at 30 with 239 points and a career plus-63.

With Connor McDavid he took 56.3 per cent over 985 attempts and 50.7 without him. With Jesse Puljujarvi 61.0 over 683 and 49.6 without. Both gaps are real and the second is bigger, which is worth remembering when the line is discussed.

Six seasons in Toronto and one here, and 27 goals is a career high by six. At 30, on the best power play in hockey, standing fifteen feet from the net. The shot chart is the asset and shot charts do not decline the way legs do.

What kind of player

The searchable half of the report. The first group is computed from the season's own data; the rest are read out of the prose above, and each one carries the sentence that produced it. A subject the report never raised is simply absent.

measuredcomputed here from the season's own data
a strengthread out of the prose, and claimed
he lacks itraised, and he does not have it

Each computed tag also says how well its measure holds up from one season to the next, because a tag describes a season that has finished and a reader will assume it predicts the one coming. Some do and some do not, and the gap is wide: five-on-five workload repeats well, scoring late does not repeat at all.

slot-man· shoots from where goals are scored
70.4% of his attempts in the slot, 98th percentile among forwards
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.69) · 44% keep it
workhorse· carries the load at even strength
14:55 a game at five-on-five, 91st percentile among forwards
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.78) · 58% keep it
net-fronta strength· lives in the blue paint; the screens and the tips
“He does not beat goaltenders with the shot; he beats them with where he is standing.”
forechecks-aggressivelya strength· first man in, and on the puck
“He covers very little ground and sprints constantly over it”
punishinghe lacks it· finishes checks; hurts people legally
“The reputation is for a heavy forechecking game and the hit count does not carry it.”

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2021-22 · 1,134 minutes

Expected goals: 53.3%; 78th pct
Shot attempts: 52.7%; 76th pct

Goals while he was on the ice: 47 for, 54 against. Expected: 56.0 and 49.0.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight

Report

84th

Numbers

78th

The two rank him within 6 points of one another. It was written for a back edition, with the seasons that followed already known. Neither the agreement nor the gap says anything about the eye, and this report is excluded from the club-level comparison for the same reason.

Both bars are percentiles among the 649 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 69 on their own scale — against every other report's mean. The numbers bar ranks his share of expected goals. A gap is a disagreement about where he belongs, not two scales talking past each other.

Tracked

NHL Edge, 2021-22 · 76 games

Top speed: 22.7 mph; 80th pct
Bursts over 20 mph: 3.22 a game
Distance: 2.91 miles a game
Hardest shot: 84.7 mph; 37th pct

A top speed is a season's best, and a man who takes more shifts gets more tries at one; the percentile is the feed's own, against every skater, and says less between a top-pair defenceman and a fourth-line wing than it does between two men in the same job. The counts are shown per game for the same reason.

Usual linemates

2021-22 · 1134 minutes at five-on-five

Share of his five-on-five ice time spent alongside each player, measured from shift charts. Special teams are excluded: a power-play unit is not a line.

Why the numbers land there

Five-on-five, 2021-22

The club: EDM took 51.3% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 53.3% — 2.0 above the club he did it on.
The role: First line, 1,134 minutes at five-on-five — 80th percentile in ice time.

With and without

Teammate	Together	Him apart	Mate apart
Connor McDavid	56.3%	50.7%	58.0%
Darnell Nurse	55.0%	51.9%	52.0%
Cody Ceci	56.5%	51.7%	49.2%

56.3% together, 50.7% for him apart and 58.0% for McDavid apart. He was worse away from McDavid, who was no better away from him — he needed that pairing more than McDavid did.

Expected-goal share while both were on the ice, and for each man in the minutes he played without the other. Apart is the pair subtracted from his own totals. It does not settle who was carrying whom — apart from each other, both were still playing with somebody — but it does say whether the share travelled when the pairing broke up.

Where he shoots from

goal on goal missed

291 unblocked shots in 2021-22, 27 of them goals. His median goal came from 12 feet. 61% of his shots came from inside twenty feet.