EDMONTON — There have always been more than just wingers, centres and defencemen skating across the history of our game. Sure, that’s how everyone starts out on the game sheet, before a puck gets dropped and each personality goes to the places where they’re most comfortable.
Remember Sandis Ozolinsh? They called him an “offenceman.”
They list Dino Ciccarelli as a right winger, but Dino was one of the great net front diggers of all time. Short, strong and skilled — with tons of courage — Dino found pucks in the slot that others never would, because that’s the style that gave a 180-pound kid out of Sarnia more than 1,200 NHL games and 600 goals.
Tomas Holmstrom was the best tip man I ever saw, while Glenn Anderson didn’t necessarily hang around the front of the net, but he wasn’t afraid to skate there at 100 miles an hour with his flailing stick touching everything and everybody on the way to a 498-goal career. Both were wingers.
Then there’s Zach Hyman, as good a “net front man” as there is in the game today.
At age 31 he’s having the best season of his life, notching his third hat trick of the season Saturday, as the Edmonton Oilers won their seventh straight, a 3-1 win over the Ottawa Senators.
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For the first time all season long the Oilers are in a playoff position, holding down a wild-card spot out West. And Hyman, with 21 goals in Edmonton’s last 23 games, has a huge hand in their resurgence.
“I’m doing the same thing. (They’re) just going in a little bit more this year,” Hyman said. “(There are) some pretty good players who make plays every single game, and I’m very fortunate to be playing with them.”
In reality though, he’s not doing the same thing.
The net front guy of 2023 isn’t doing it the same way as Tim Kerr back in the ‘80s. Heck, Hyman isn’t even doing it the same way as Hyman did when he was a rookie with the Toronto Maple Leafs eight seasons ago.
“My first year. I think I had 10 goals and I was in front of the net all the time. I didn’t move,” he recalled. “Then, you slowly figure out what works. You don’t always have to be directly in front of the goalie to be in front of the net.
“Then, when you play with super, super talented players, you talk the game through. ‘Hey, when you do this, is this a good spot for me? Or do you want me somewhere else?’”
Hyman is a major part of what was the best power play in NHL history last season, and one that went two-for-three against the Senators Saturday to climb into sixth spot in the NHL at 26.1 percent. He’s the caretaker at the science lab, taking some fabulous Connor McDavid invention and placing it safely behind the goalie, tipping an Evan Bouchard cannon, or cleaning up after a Leon Draisaitl missile.
But, of course, there is more to it than meets the eye.
“Just playing with guys that I play with … on the power play, they’re able to make plays that traditionally you don’t think are really possible. So instead of just standing there… we talk to Connor about it a lot, and those guys. ‘Hey, where do you want me?’”
On Saturday, Hyman opened the scoring with a traditional deflection of a Bouchard point shot. Then he walked in on Anton Forsberg and wired a wrist shot that found its way under the goalie’s arm and in. Then, from his usual spot sealing the goalpost, he directed in a McDavid pass.
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It’s a thing that is rather unique to Hyman: He angles his body while standing alongside the post, so a puck that hits him will bounce in, just in case he doesn’t get a stick on it.
“I’m just trying to find an angle to see if (McDavid) is going to shoot it, maybe be a basketball backboard and give him an extra two feet,” he said. “Or if he makes a heck of a pass that I can kind of tip in, whether it hits my body or goes straight in, or lays there for someone else.
“When I first got into the league, everyone would just stand in front of the goalie. You got to be creative and find ways.”
Today, Hyman sits tied for fourth in goal scoring with 25 goals. After posting career highs of 27 and 36 goals in each of his two years with the Oilers, he is almost certain to set a new mark in Year 3 of a seven-year deal that carries an AAV of $5.5 million.
Which begs the question: When is the Zach Hyman contract supposed to start not ageing well?
“Hey, I had a late start,” laughed Hyman, who had his first full season with the Leafs at age 24. “Look at Sid (Crosby). He’s a generational player, but he just keeps on getting better. I played with Patty Marleau, who was unbelievable at his age when I was still a young guy.
“I always hated that misnomer that you fall off a cliff when you turn 30. Everybody takes care of their bodies differently,” he said. “There are some parts of analytics that I like, but they go off the average, and a lot of guys fall off when they’re 30. But there’s no reason you can’t get better.”
