Oilers: Three Reasons The Zach Hyman Signing Was The Right Call

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.