Armchair Hockey Scout Beta

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

18

Zach Hyman

Edmonton Oilers Left Wing

A 60.3 per cent chance share — the highest of any skater in the league — and his line was outscored 27-42.

SeasonTeamGPGAPTS+/-PIMPPSHGWSS%TOI
2015-16TOR164260180003710.815:41
2016-17TOR82101828+2300431566.416:42
2017-18TOR82152540+223701214810.117:21
2018-19TOR71212041+166501414414.617:17
2019-20TOR51211637+132331110619.819:06
2020-21TOR43151833+192830411513.019:22
2021-22EDM76272754-93651421312.719:28
2022-23EDM79364783+1339150327613.020:09
2023-24EDM80542377+3648150729018.619:30
2024-25EDM73271744+93260721012.918:53
2025-26 so far
Career653230213443+12135647835169513.618:31

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.

60.3 per cent at five-on-five, the 100th percentile — the highest chance share of any skater in the NHL. His on-ice goals were 27-42 against an expected 61.0-40.1. That is 34 goals that did not arrive. 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.

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 1,078 minutes

Expected goals
60.3%
100th pct

share of the chances while he was out there

Shot attempts
58.7%
98th pct

share of the attempts while he was out there

Goals while he was on the ice: 27 for, 42 against. Expected: 61.0 and 40.1.

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 357 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.

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 60.3% — 6.0 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

TeammateTogetherHim apartMate apart
Connor McDavid62.0%56.4%55.4%
Evan Bouchard61.6%58.2%55.6%
Mattias Ekholm60.1%60.5%58.1%

62.0% together, 56.4% for him apart and 55.4% 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.