Zach Hyman

Last Season

Thirty-one goals and 52 points in 58 games. The goal rate was the best of his career, in a season he did not play all of.

The Finesse Game

He is not a natural scorer and he would tell you so himself. What he is, is the best net-front player on this team and one of the best anywhere at the specific skill of arriving at a rebound a half-second before the defenseman believes he can. His hands in a scramble are quick and, more to the point, unhurried — he does not panic with the puck in a crowd, which is why so many of his goals look like they went in by accident and none of them did.

Away from the crease, the value is on the forecheck. He gets to the defenseman first, takes the body, and turns pucks over more often than anyone else on the roster. Playing beside McDavid, that is the entire job description: win it back, give it to him, then go stand in front of the net.

His skating is heavy rather than fast. He gets where he is going.

The Physical Game

Two hundred and six pounds of it, delivered every night. He finishes checks, he goes to the hard areas without being asked twice, and he takes cross-checks in the back for two hours without retaliating, which is its own kind of discipline. Very few forwards in the league absorb this much punishment on purpose.

The cost has started to show. He is into his thirties, the games missed have crept up, and this is not a style that ages quietly.

The Intangibles

The compete level is genuinely elite, and in his case it is not a throwaway line — it is the actual reason he is a top-line player rather than a fourth-liner. He is also the player younger teammates copy, which matters on a roster where the two best players cannot be copied by anybody.

The read going forward is simple. The skills that got him here are the ones that decline last. The body that delivers them is being asked for a great deal.