Oilers star winger Zach Hyman has been a great success in Edmonton. Leaving the Toronto Maple Leafs was a tough decision for Hyman, but in this feature story from THN's Nov. 26, 2021 edition, writer Matt Larkin drilled deep to provide a profile of Hyman in his first year as an Oiler:

DESTINY AWAITS

By Matt Larkin

"When hearts are high, the time will fly, so whistle while you work,” urges the famous song in Disney’s 1937 animated film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. It’s a fitting mantra for an NHL player who pens children’s books. Zach Hyman doesn’t literally whistle while he works, as far as we know, yet he does everything but, according to those who toil alongside him.

Edmonton Oilers coach Dave Tippett calls Hyman “very positive, an energetic guy with a smile on his face, seems like he’s always in a good mood, just a genuine, very good person.” Defenseman Darnell Nurse describes Hyman’s upbeat personality and work ethic as “infectious.” So what gives Hyman such a spring in his step these days?

It probably starts with the seven-year, $38.5-million contract he signed this past summer to become the Oilers’ first-line left winger. He’s particularly peppy because he gets to share a line with the greatest hockey talent of this generation and perhaps any other: Connor McDavid, the superstar scoring at a rate not seen since Mario Lemieux ripped it up in the mid-1990s.

After Hyman signed his contract, did he start dreaming up scenarios of skating with No. 97? Of course. Wouldn’t you? “All the time,” Hyman said, adding a joking caveat to “not sleep on” superstar center Leon Draisaitl. “That was a major factor in why I chose Edmonton. Obviously Connor is special, and he’s doing things that are unheard of, and to be a part of his career and potentially play with him is definitely one of the reasons I chose Edmonton. Of course you get excited for the start of the year. In your head, you map out who you may play with.”

The pull of Edmonton was undeniable for Hyman, 29. But there was also a “push” at play. He’d reached a point in his career at which a divorce from his hometown team, the Toronto Maple Leafs, made a surprising amount of sense. Why?

First off: the on-ice anguish. He’d exited 2020-21 experiencing what most of the players on the team called the most devastating in a series of disappointments spanning half a decade. The Leafs had won the temporarily realigned North Division, which was guaranteed an entrant among the final four teams in the Stanley Cup playoff bracket. They opened the post-season with, unofficially, their best Stanley Cup odds in more than 15 years. Minutes into Game 1 of their first-round series against Montreal, Leafs captain John Tavares sustained a disturbing head injury, catching an errant knee from Habs right winger Corey Perry, and was stretchered off the ice.

Looking back on the horrific incident, which knocked Tavares out for the playoffs, Hyman admits Game 1 was a write-off. The Leafs’ hearts were with their captain, hockey became secondary and they lost that game. They fought back to take a 3-1 series lead but ended up choking it away on home ice in Game 7.

That meant Hyman was part of five consecutive first-round exits. None hurt more than 2021’s. “Last year’s loss for Toronto, for us, was the worst I’ve ever experienced,” Hyman said. “We were as close as we’d ever been, we had the chance to win the series, and the path for us to get to the final and potentially win was there. I thought we had a great team. The team was top in the North all year. I thought we could beat anybody. With the missed opportunities, just, I didn’t want to watch (the rest of the playoffs). It was too hard. But that’s hockey. You play that series over 100 times and I think it turns out in our favor more so than not.”

Hyman had spent most of last season wanting to remain a Leaf. The problem: he played too well in his UFA walk year. With 15 goals and 33 points in 43 games, he produced the best per-game stat line of his career while also playing an inspiring, hardnosed style in all situations. With a similarly aged, similarly skilled but less versatile Brendan Gallagher establishing a contract comparable with a six-year, $39-million deal signed in October 2020, it was clear Hyman could score a long-term deal more than doubling last season’s AAV of $2.25 million on the open market.

The Leafs, already spending more than $40 million on their star forward quartet of Tavares, Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner and William Nylander, needed to squirrel away cap space to sign a goalie and extend defenseman Morgan Rielly’s contract. The crushing playoff defeat created an urgency to reshape the roster, and the Leafs gave permission for Hyman to speak with other teams, which he appreciated.

Rather than risk a Groundhog Day scenario in Toronto, he allowed himself to get excited about playing elsewhere. “I said this to my wife: change is good,” Hyman said. “When you’re in a place for so long, things remain stagnant from a personal standpoint. I know my role in Toronto, I know what I can do in Toronto, and then it’s like, well, what if I went somewhere else? How much can I develop my game? Can I be a better player in that situation? So you start to think about those things and, for me, the best hockey fit was Edmonton.”

Edmonton also represented an exciting personal fit for Hyman. That may come as a surprise given he was born and raised in Toronto, he met his wife, Alannah Mozes, there, most of their close family and friends live there and he usually considered that a wonderful blessing. But playing away from all the personal ties offers a better opportunity to immerse himself in the sport.

“It’s nice to go to a city where you don’t know as many people,” Hyman said. “You don’t have as many obligations. You can focus on your family and your hockey and your work and not being pulled in a million different directions. Even though those directions are nice, it can be tiresome sometimes. Obviously, there are benefits to playing in your hometown, but there are benefits to going somewhere else and being somewhere quieter with your family, focusing on your craft and going all-in on it.”

The Oilers were all-in on him, too. As Tippett explains, they “did a lot of homework” on Hyman. Oilers assistant coach Brian Wiseman was an assistant coach at the University of Michigan for Hyman’s four-year career there and knew firsthand what he could bring to Edmonton. Facing the Leafs nine times last year in North Division play, the Oilers also had many looks at the NHL version of Hyman.

“We had a really good idea of what we were getting,” Tippett said. “When you’re watching from afar and coaching against him, you understand he’s in a lot of situations. He gives the coach such versatility with what he can do: penalty kill, power play, key times in the game, just work ethic on certain situations. As a coach, you really appreciate all the attributes he has to have an impact on the game.”

Added Nurse: “Every time we played him, it was just battle, battle, battle. We just go at each other the whole time. So it’s funny, when we picked him up, he was like, ‘Finally we don’t have to battle each other.’ I’m like ‘Yep, it’s nice.’”

Hyman’s tenacious game, punctuated by fast and fearless puck retrievals and absorbing net-front punishment, batters his body. In his final three seasons as a Leaf, ankle and knee injuries cost him 40 of 208 games (he missed three more via suspension or illness), meaning he missed around 20 percent of Toronto’s schedule. When he signed a seven-year pact that takes him to 36, skepticism over whether he could deliver full value for the entirety of the deal was warranted. Players of his ilk commonly deteriorate in their early 30s.

But the Oilers probably weren’t worrying about that when they signed him. They understand they need to make deep playoff runs in the next couple seasons, while McDavid and Draisaitl are peaking like no teammates since Lemieux and Jaromir Jagr. Few if any pundits expressed doubt Hyman could seriously help the Oilers short term, and he did exactly that to start 2021-22. In the season’s first fifth, he was on pace for his first 40-goal season. He led NHL forwards in individual high-danger shot attempts per 60 minutes at 5-on-5.

Did it help that Hyman was playing on a dominant line with McDavid and Jesse Puljujarvi? Sure, but not all players can excel alongside sublime talents. Hyman was extremely effective with Matthews and Marner in Toronto, too, and prides himself on his ability to keep up with superstars. “I’m comfortable playing with elite talents,” Hyman said. “I’ve seen in the past, when guys get placed with guys of elite caliber, you try to change your game and over-pass or get the puck to them too much. But playing with Auston or playing with Mitch, playing with ‘JT’ or Willy, I’ve had the experience of playing with guys that always want the puck, and Connor’s no different.”

It’s a disservice to Hyman, however, to portray him as some fortunate passenger who keeps stumbling onto lines with superstars. There’s a reason he can stick with them. As Tippett sees it, there’s also more than one way to define skill. “You can have high-skill guys that have great hands and grab the thing, and they look like they can dangle and shoot it quick, but Hyman’s skill is really a by-product of his work ethic, because he uses his skill in small spaces, he controls pucks in small spaces,” Tippett said.

“He reminds me very much of a player I had for years in Dallas: Jere Lehtinen. I used to marvel at…there’d be a puck bouncing around, and there’d be four guys whacking at it, and somehow Lehtinen would always end up getting it under control and bringing it out of the pile, and that’s what Hyman does. He gets in those scrums. It’s not pure ‘skill’ like when you see a guy flying down the ice, but there’s a skill to (controlling) the puck in small areas under pressure, and that’s where he’s very good.”

So Hyman is every bit the fit the Oilers hoped he’d be. Will his personal success translate into the greatest team success of his NHL career? He’s yet to get past the first round, but the Oilers were Pacific Division frontrunners through late November, with McDavid and Draisaitl tracking for the greatest single-season numbers of any NHLers this millennium. The team still had to work on allowing fewer 5-on-5 chances, and, with greybeard Mike Smith hurt, it was vital GM Ken Holland start thinking about a major goalie upgrade. But Edmonton undoubtedly has its deadliest team in the McDavid era, its best chance for a deep playoff run.

Given Edmonton has also struggled to escape the early rounds of the playoffs, Hyman sees a similar hunger there as was present in Toronto. He has the chance to exorcise those old demons, in a way, while simultaneously trying something new. He does so with an energy that seems to have spread rapidly in the Oilers room, fostering a more positive tone than has been customary in the McDavid Era.

“There are certain people that you bring into your organization and they just bring something that can’t be taught,” Nurse said. “That’s the work, coming each and every day. It’s not even a question: he practises the same way, works out the same way, he’s going to play the same way. It doesn’t matter what kind of day he’s having away from the rink. It doesn’t matter if he scored 20 goals or two goals. He’s going to bring the same work ethic every day. He’s going to be around a long time, and we’re lucky to have him around a long time.”

Calgary Flames star left winger Jonathan Huberdeau has had a stellar season this year. But in this cover story from THN's 2022 Trade Deadline Preview, writer Matt Larkin covered Huberdeau's ascent as an elite competitor with the Florida Panthers:

APPRECIATION VALUE

By Matt Larkin

A 1999 Saturn Station Wagon? Really?

Imagine being an impressionable teenager, thrilled to pass your driver’s test and own your first car. Better yet: mom and dad run a used-car dealership. You’re not getting driven onto some dusty lot to buy the cheapest thing on wheels; you have your pick of the family fleet. This will be sweet.

But…nope. You get that ’99 Saturn, the blandest, most forgettable vehicle on the lot.

Alain Huberdeau has run Prev-automobiles Inc. in Prevost, Que., for more than 30 years, and even he admits the car he gave his youngest son, Jonathan, was second-rate. “It was not a nice car,” said Alain with a laugh. “Five-speed nowhere nothing.”

But that car did exactly what it was supposed to. It was an intelligent, efficient purchase. It got great gas mileage. It was affordable. It smoothly transported 16-year-old Jonathan to and from Saint John, N.B., where he began playing for the QMJHL’s Sea Dogs in 2009-10. It forced him to learn how to drive a stick shift. It also instilled a brainy sensibility in young Jonathan.

Rather than feeling entitled to the fanciest sports car on the lot, he learned the value of making the most out of what he had. He learned he would have to work harder than everyone around him if he wanted to make it as an NHL hockey player with ordinary skating ability. Even when he earned his first NHL contract and signing bonus after the Florida Panthers drafted him third overall in 2011, he made the sensible choice of another used car from the Huberdeau family dealership, this time a Honda Civic. He wanted to think his way to success – behind the wheel and on the ice.

Everything in Huberdeau’s life was a slow build to progress – tracing back to his early childhood. Ironically, one of the greatest current puck wizards in hockey got his start on ice without a puck, without a stick and almost without hockey skates. Huberdeau pushed back on the latter when his parents enrolled him in speed skating as a five-year-old. That’s not to be confused with power skating, which many future hockey players try before starting organized hockey.

We’re talkin’ actual speed skating, the kind you see in the Olympics, consisting of athletes with tree-trunk legs in bodysuits zooming along the track on flat blades. Huberdeau refused to wear those, so he took speed skating in his hometown of Saint-Jerome, Que., as the only kid in the class wearing hockey skates. But he wasn’t the typical youngster yawning his way through each session, complaining of frozen feet and wishing he was playing real hockey. “I was OK with it,” Huberdeau said. “It was actually better for me to start doing speed skating because you got to learn how to skate without a stick.”

Once he got a stick in his hands, speed skating had granted him the mobility to play keepaway with other kids – particularly when playing on ponds with far more people than are allowed in a regular game. “You do learn a lot of things when you play with 40 kids who want to keep the puck for themselves,” Alain Huberdeau said. “You have to work hard to keep it, so that’s probably where he learned a lot of hockey.”

Jonathan, his older brother Sebastien and their younger sister Josiane also learned a lot about the game watching their beloved Montreal Canadiens and, more specifically, the Canadiens facing the Panthers in Florida. The Huberdeaus dabbled in the snowbird life. Every Christmas, they’d head down to South Florida in an RV, and they’d catch games whenever the Habs and Panthers overlapped on the schedule. And after beach days, the kids played for hours on end at a local roller rink.

“We’d take a break to eat dinner quick, and we’d go play a big game,” Huberdeau said. “And I feel like, in Florida, there weren’t a lot of people playing with rollerblades and playing roller hockey, so we’d have the rink to ourselves.”

Being drafted by Florida, then, constituted a homecoming for Huberdeau. By the time the Panthers called his name in 2011, he was considered a star in the making, having led Saint John to a Memorial Cup weeks earlier. But he never viewed himself as a can’t-miss prospect. He wasn’t the child phenom who had video-game stats and agents sniffing around when he was barely starting puberty. Even in bantam, he was only playing BB. His parents didn’t sense he had NHL potential until he began to excel in U-18 AAA.

The speed skating had Huberdeau’s footwork at an acceptable baseline when he started hockey, but he was no burner. He never even felt he stood out on his own teams as a kid. “I was a good player, but I wasn’t the best player,” he said. “I wasn’t the fastest guy, so it wasn’t all pretty what I was doing out there. I had good vision, and I liked to pass the puck. When you’re young and you’re not that fast, you think you’re not special. I feel like special players are fast, and they’re really skilled, and that’s not what I was. But my hockey sense brought me to where I am right now, and that’s what I had when I was younger. I tell kids sometimes, no need to give up if you’re not always the best at everything. Sometimes you just get better when you get older.”

Huberdeau carried that modesty with him into the NHL, where he embarked on what was trending toward a good-but-not-great career. He won the Calder Trophy in the shortened 2012-13 campaign but with a mere 31 points in 48 games during a down year for rookies. Across his first five seasons, he amassed 198 points in 303 games, amounting to an average stat line of 18 goals and 54 points per 82 games. He played in one playoff series over the span. No one would’ve characterized him as a bust, but he wasn’t dominating in the same way he did in his final major-junior years.

Even if he was too humble ever to see himself as that player, he did believe he could evolve himself into that player. “His biggest ability was to persevere,” Alain said. “He had some tough years in Florida, but he wanted to stick there, and he really believed in that organization. They always treat him well. He could see that one day, they would be better.”

Slowly, the Panthers surrounded Huberdeau with talent. They selected center Aleksander Barkov with the No. 2 overall pick in 2013, and defenseman Aaron Ekblad with the No. 1 pick in 2014. They stole defenseman MacKenzie Weegar in the seventh round of the 2013 draft. The company Huberdeau kept began to improve, and something started to change in his game.

He could always rag the puck, but he started to pile up points once he had teammates who could finish his setups. In 2017-18, he had a career-best 69 points. The following season, he leaped to 92. Then it was 78 in just 69 games, then 61 in 55 games, and then, by the 2021-22 all-star break, 64 in 47 games, good for the NHL scoring lead. Was it simply a natural progression of talent causing his numbers to explode? Was it the influx of high-quality teammates? GM Bill Zito has peppered the Panthers lineup with effective forwards since he took over in September 2020. Zito’s additions – from right winger Anthony Duclair to left winger Carter Verhaeghe to center Sam Bennett to right winger Sam Reinhart – have been difference-makers.

In Huberdeau’s mind, the steady incline of his play came from understanding what he did best and what gaps in his game needed filling once he reached his mid-20s. He feels he’s transitioned from support player to star-caliber by improving his play without the puck and becoming more involved in every aspect of the game, whether it’s physical play, general intensity or killing penalties. He cites defensive play as the area of his game in which he’s least confident, and he’s worked to improve it.

He has shown an innate ability to rub off on his linemates – who may have more raw physical skill – and use his brain to make them better. According to Bennett, who came over in a trade in April 2021 and has been Huberdeau’s most common linemate this year, Huberdeau has a massive influence on the team because he works so hard that he spurs others to follow him. Add in the playmaking skill and it’s no wonder Huberdeau’s linemates are always over the moon to have him on their left wing. The sense of humor doesn’t hurt, either. “He does a really good job of bringing life to our room, and he’s pretty much in the middle of every joke or every friendly chirp that’s going on,” Bennett said. “He’s always involved. He really is a leader off the ice. Of course, on the ice, too, but he really is one of the main leaders off the ice as well.”

Over the past five seasons, Huberdeau, 28, ranks sixth in the NHL in assists, seventh in points and 14th in points per game. Those are hardly the types of numbers that make a player invisible. And yet he’s played in two All-Star Games, has one second-team post-season all-star selection to his name and has received Hart Trophy votes in only one season, though that will surely change after this one. 

You know he’s been cloaked in obscurity when a new linemate is surprised to learn how good he is. “When I got to actually play with him every day and see what he’s like, it’s pretty remarkable,” Bennett said. “I had no idea how talented he really was, his vision, the way he can make plays. He makes plays that I don’t think anyone else would even attempt. So it’s been really cool to actually see how gifted he is and get the chance to play with him so much.”

Has Huberdeau taken the unofficial crown from Mark Stone to become the NHL’s most underrated player? Yes, if we judge him based on how those around him evaluate his skills. “He’s deceptively fast,” said Panthers coach Andrew Brunette. “If you asked me which skill of his is underrated, it’s his puck protection and ability to hang onto the puck. It’s a little bit like Sidney Crosby, a little like Pavel Datsyuk, where they get it on a string, they get it in their feet, and you just can’t get it off him when he gets on that roll.”

There’s no clichéd chip on Huberdeau’s shoulder, no indication he feels he deserves more acknowledgment. He’s aware of the “underrated” label but unfazed. “We’re in a market where we don’t get talked about too much, playing in Florida, but I don’t care,” he said. “I know what I’m worth. I know what I can do, and that’s all that matters for me. Obviously, I think I’ve stepped up my game, but I don’t care if I’m the most underrated player. I know I’m a good player, and I know I can make a difference out there.”

Fulfilling his duty like pretty much every Canadian hockey player when asked to sing his own praises, Huberdeau prioritizes the team instead. There’s something to it in this case, however. The Panthers have achieved such strong group chemistry that, in another recent interview with The Hockey News, Zito expressed reticence over making any major trades that might upset the vibes. Huberdeau says 2021-22 is the most fun he’s had as a Panther, that the team operates like a family, that he’s never felt closer to his teammates.

The harmonious atmosphere shows in the standings, too. As of Feb. 16, Florida held the Eastern Conference’s highest points percentage at .734. How dominant were they? Not only was it by far their highest mark in franchise history, but only 21 teams in NHL history have posted a higher points percentage over a full season – out of 1,599 teams total. That puts the Panthers’ current pace in the 98th percentile of every NHL team, ever. Now it makes more sense that Huberdeau would turn the attention toward team goals.

Florida has easily the best team in its 28-season history. Through the all-star break, it averaged an incredible 4.09 goals per game, the most of any NHL team since the 1995-96 Pittsburgh Penguins. The Panthers are a clear Stanley Cup threat. But they must conquer the chore of sharing a division – and, woof, a playoff bracket – with the two-time defending champion Tampa Bay Lightning.

We should know better than to bet against Huberdeau’s crew by now, though. Their improvement in recent seasons, from .524 to .565 to .705 to .734 hockey, has been steady and methodical, just like the improvement in his personal play – and to his car collection. No more Saturns or Civics for Huberdeau now.

He earned his way to a two-year bridge deal on a $3.25-million AAV coming off his entry-level contract and is now five seasons into a six-year contract with a $5.9-million AAV. According to capfriendly.com, his estimated career earnings exceed $36 million. So, yes, he can afford the sexy cars now. Lots of them. Among his favorites: a Dodge Challenger SRT Hellcat, a Cadillac Escalade and a Tesla.

But Huberdeau’s most cherished automobile symbolizes everything he has accomplished to date: the Ferrari. It personifies loud, flashy success. It’s everything Huberdeau wasn’t for so much of his career, but it’s what he’s becoming. He’s a superstar now, and he can’t hide from that, even if he still feels like a 1999 Saturn on the inside.