This is the 2025-26 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →

Zach Hyman

A 60.3 per cent chance share — the highest of any skater in the league — and his line was outscored 61-48.

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	EDM	79	36	47	83	+13	39	15	0	3	276	13.0	20:09
2023-24	EDM	80	54	23	77	+36	48	15	0	7	290	18.6	19:30
2024-25	EDM	73	27	17	44	+9	32	6	0	7	210	12.9	18:53
2025-26 so far	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—
Career	—	653	230	213	443	+121	356	47	8	35	1695	13.6	18:31

This Season So Far

The 2025-26 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 17 assists in 73 games for 44 points, plus-9, on 18:53 a night and 210 shots.

61.4 per cent at five-on-five, the 100th percentile — the highest chance share of any skater in the NHL. His on-ice goals were 61-48 against an expected 64.7-40.6. That is four goals that did not arrive, and seven more against than the chances called for. 69 per cent of his shots came from inside 20 feet at a median of 12 feet, the most extreme interior profile in this entire edition.

The Finesse Game

There is not much handling and there does not need to be. The whole game is arriving at the front of the net before the defenceman does and being ready when the puck comes — 210 shots from a median distance of 12 feet is a statistical profile almost nobody in the league shares.

12.9 per cent shooting from those locations is a poor return and it is the clearest single example of the club’s season. 17 assists says what he does for other people, which is occupy two defenders.

The Physical Game

6-1 and 206, and among the hardest-working forwards in the league. He forechecks with genuine violence, takes an enormous amount of punishment at the net front, and does not stop.

32 penalty minutes over 73 games is disciplined for the style. A wrist injury in the playoffs is the concern going forward — a game built entirely on going to the paint has a fixed lifespan and he is 33.

The Intangibles

A fifth-round pick, a college career nobody projected from, and a late peak built entirely on being willing to do the job nobody else wants.

At 33 the projection is a decline in the goals and none at all in the value. A 100th-percentile chance share is not luck and it is not McDavid alone — this is the man who wins the puck that starts it.

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
75.7% of his attempts in the slot, 99th percentile among forwards
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.69) · 44% keep it
drives-play· the shot clock turns his way while he is out there
61.4% of the expected goals at five-on-five with him on, 51.0% for his club in the minutes he sat: +10.4, 100th percentile among forwards
Season to season, this measure repeats moderately (0.39) · 29% keep it
workhorse· carries the load at even strength
14:46 a game at five-on-five, 94th percentile among forwards
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.78) · 58% keep it
sheltered· is started in the attacking end
64% of his end-zone starts in the attacking end, 95th percentile among forwards
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.66) · 47% keep it
net-fronta strength· lives in the blue paint; the screens and the tips
“The whole game is arriving at the front of the net before the defenceman does and being ready when the puck comes”
forechecks-aggressivelya strength· first man in, and on the puck
“He forechecks with genuine violence, takes an enormous amount of punishment at the net front, and does not stop.”
playmakerhe lacks it· passes up the shot a scorer takes
“17 assists says what he does for other people, which is occupy two defenders.”

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 1,078 minutes

Expected goals: 61.4%; 100th pct
Shot attempts: 59.2%; 98th pct

Goals while he was on the ice: 61 for, 48 against. Expected: 64.7 and 40.6.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight

Report

93rd

Numbers

100th

The two rank him within 7 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 637 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 82 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, 2024-25 · 73 games

Top speed: 23.1 mph; 88th pct
Bursts over 20 mph: 2.23 a game
Distance: 2.66 miles a game
Hardest shot: 86.4 mph; 54th 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

2024-25 · 1078 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, 2024-25

The club: EDM took 54.3% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 61.4% — 7.1 above the club he did it on.
The role: First line, 1,078 minutes at five-on-five — 72nd percentile in ice time.

With and without

Teammate	Together	Him apart	Mate apart
Connor McDavid	63.3%	56.9%	54.7%
Evan Bouchard	61.9%	60.6%	55.0%
Mattias Ekholm	61.5%	61.3%	57.8%

63.3% together, 56.9% for him apart and 54.7% for McDavid apart. Both were worse apart, so whatever the two of them had together was doing real work.

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

309 unblocked shots in 2024-25, 27 of them goals. His median goal came from 8 feet. 69% of his shots came from inside twenty feet.