Why so much recent success, especially at age 31, four or five years after most players have hit their peak?
“As far as the age thing goes, remember, he played four years at the University of Michigan, so he didn’t really start playing regularly in the NHL until he was 24, 25 years old,” Holland said. “So, he doesn’t really have the wear and tear on him of most players his age.
“As for the spike in goals, I think it’s because of two reasons. First, he’s on one of the league’s best power plays. Secondly, he plays with the best playmaker in the world.”
Indeed, there are times where Hyman has scored, then looks almost embarrassingly at McDavid who had just fed him with a ridiculous setup.
“Obviously if you would have cited some of these numbers to me years ago, like scoring 50-plus or leading all playoff scorers in goals, I’d have been in shock,” he admitted. “But coming off this year, goal scoring is now part of my game.
“I think I need to produce and be a part of the production. I play on the power play. And I play with Connor. If you play with Connor, you are going to get opportunities and you’ve got to score. That’s part of the job. That’s part of my job.
“Every year I’ve progressed somewhat. When I first came up into the League with Toronto (2015-2016) I wasn’t playing minutes, I wasn’t playing power play, I just wanted to stay in the lineup. I did some penalty killing. And when I did start playing with skilled players like Auston (Matthews) and Mitch (Marner), my job was to get the puck and get it to the skilled players, then go stand in front of the net.”
Through it all, slowly but surely, his confidence grew.
“Every year I’ve worked to progress and worked to develop a chemistry with the special players I play with,” Hyman said. “Look, I don’t have the hardest shot. I don’t score from 30 feet out. I don’t have a one-timer like (Alex) Ovechkin. I don’t shoot it like Auston or (Steven) Stamkos. But I do try to read the game and understand where I need to be, which is the hard areas in front of the net.”
So far, so good.
“I’ll tell you this much,” Holland said. “It’s damn well working.”
* * * *
As the clock ticked down Sunday, with the Oilers leading 2-1 against the Dallas Stars in Game 6 of the Western Conference Final and a Stanley Cup Final berth at stake, Hyman tried to tune out the white noise.
But was hard. Very hard. Because it was, as he says, “damn loud.”
“The last five minutes were so, so intense,” he said. “And the noise, it’s hard to describe. We couldn’t hear each other on the bench because the fans were roaring the whole time. Out on the ice, we’re getting pucks out of our end, they kept bringing them back in. It felt like an eternity.”
Until the final horn mercifully sounded. Then it didn’t.
The Oilers were going to the Stanley Cup Final for the first time since 2006. They had eliminated the Stars 4-2 in the best-of-7 series, and Rogers Place, if not the entire city, had busted out into a huge orange-and-blue clad party. So much so that when he attempted to do an on-ice post-game interview with TNT’s Jackie Redmond, the cheers from the giddy spectators drowned out her questions to the point where he couldn’t hear them.
Later, as he and wife Alannah were driving home from the arena, listening to the car horns of frenzied Oilers supporters honk deep into the night, he took time to enjoy the moment and think about being four wins away from a Stanley Cup victory.
“Coming here,” he said, “was the best decision of my life.”
