Oilers: Three Reasons The Zach Hyman Signing Was The Right Call
The Edmonton Oilers’ decision to give Zach Hyman a massive seven-year contract was something that has been talked about a lot in recent weeks.
I have not been the biggest fan of this move by the Oilers, and I have talked about that a lot. Today though I want to talk about some benefits to the decision to sign Hyman long-term with Edmonton.
Going into this offseason, everyone expected some changes from the Oilers. While no one really knew what changes were going to happen for sure, a few things were certain. Larsson was going to get a contract extension, Nugent-Hopkins was probably gone, and Edmonton was going to do everything they can to improve their forward depth before the new season.
Well, one of those things came true. Edmonton did in fact do their best to bring in some talent to boost the bottom six, whether or not they did enough is still up in the air. The team watched Larsson take a contract in Seattle, they gave Nugent-Hopkins a long-term extension keeping him in Edmonton for many years, and they signed another big-name forward, Zach Hyman from the Toronto Maple Leafs.
Hyman was due for a contract at the end of the season, and there were some talks of a sign and trade deal between Edmonton and Toronto, but at the end of the day, they decided to wait until free agency began and gave him a nice seven-year deal.
Here are Hyman’s stats throughout his career thus far:
33 points in 43 games, that would be 63 points during a regular season. While Hyman probably won’t be putting that up next season we will have to wait and see. Let’s dive in with the first reason signing Hyman was the right call for the team.
1 Gives Connor McDavid His Top Linemate
Connor McDavid has been through a lot so far in his career. The franchise player has been to the postseason just twice unless you count the qualifiers when the team lost to Chicago. McDavid has been near the top of the league in scoring every season he has played, and yet he cannot catch a break when it comes to the rest of the lineup.
He made Zack Kassian a 30 point NHL player and a 15 goal scorer two seasons in a row and then the team chalked him up a big contract. McDavid has been making bottom-six NHL players look like talented offensive forwards for a while now, but thankfully with this Hyman signing the team can now give him a winger he can trust.
Edmonton played McDavid with Draisaitl a little last season. This decision to sign Hyman gives the team two lines they can count on in McDavid/Hyman and Draisaitl/Nugent-Hopkins. Of course, if the team needs to put McDavid and Draisaitl together at any time they can always put Nugent-Hopkins in the centermen spot to work with Hyman as well.
This just gives the team another top-six forward to work with. Before this, the team really only had three top-six guys and then a couple of 20 something-year-olds to try and mix in with the bunch. Now while they still will be doing that with the third guy on each line, they will be a little better off.
2 The Team Did Not Have To Give Anything Up
Usually to acquire a player like this a team needs to trade for a top star in the league. Edmonton had to acquire a guy like this in free agency. Sure, could Brandon Saad have been more appealing at a smaller dollar amount? Yes. But the team got the guy they wanted at a price they were willing to pay.
Edmonton made a trade to acquire Warren Foegele and the cost was Ethan Bear a defenceman the team thought highly of. If that was the price for a third-line player the price of a top-six guy was going to be even higher.
Acquiring players in free agency is nice because it doesn’t send a draft pick the other way or any other type of asset. The team signed a nice addition to the top six and all it cost them was maybe a few too many years on the deal.
3 Stability For Years To Come
There are two sides to a long-term contract. One side is the fact that by the time this deal is over Hyman probably won’t be worth five-plus million dollars. While the other side is the fact that the team now knows they will be paying this contract for seven years.
Before the offseason began, the longest contracts in Edmonton belonged to McDavid, Draisaitl, Kassian, Klefbom. Now the team at least knows where some of their money is going to be spent for the next five-plus years.
The Edmonton Oilers are buying into a championship soon. They wouldn’t have signed Hyman if they did not think they were going for it now. Yes, the price is high and the term is not fun to look at. But if the team tried signing Hyman for just three years they probably would have been paying into the 6 or 7 million dollar mark to get him under contract. At least with the deal that is now in place, they can also afford to sign another player or get right under the salary cap.
Overall, I still am not the biggest fan of the signing only because of the contract. Hyman is an excellent player that will do anything he can to score goals. He is someone that thrives playing with the top-end talented players, and I am excited to see what McDavid does playing on a line with him this coming season.
It will be interesting to see how many points these guys put up this season considering the crazy year McDavid had in 2021.