Why you shouldn’t be too worried about Zach Hyman’s scoring touch

I think we all know the good things about Zach Hyman, and I don’t think anybody is going to come around to discredit them. Very few players are more efficient along the boards, he’s extremely mobile, and whether he scores or not, he’ll retrieve and hold onto the puck for you enough to really tilt the ice. That impact showed up in the numbers; his line with Auston Matthews and William Nylander was one of the league’s most dominant throughout the year and individually, he was in the upper half of relative shot attempt, unblocked shot attempt, shots on goal, expected goal, and scoring chance differential among 1000+ minute forwards.

You know where he hasn’t looked so positive, though? Putting the puck in the net. Last year, he didn’t do nearly enough of that to satisfy Leafs fans, who expected more out of a player who spent the year playing with about 60 goals worth of younger linemates and finished with just 10 of his own. 

Of 136 forwards who played at least 1000 minutes of 5-on-5 hockey this season, Hyman finished 136th in shooting percentage. Yep, the very bottom, firing at just 4.48%. It’s easy to look at that and blame it on a lack of talent, but at the same time, there are some very skilled names in the Bottom 10, who don’t really have a history of being bad shooters.

Also notable here is the fact that Hyman isn’t completely incapable of hitting the net. In fact, he’s the exact opposite. 68% of attempted shots that the 25-year-old has taken have turned into shots on goal, which ranked second in that pool of 136 behind Lightning/Flyers centre Valtteri Filppula, who is a lot pickier about when he shoots (only Henrik Sedin and Joe Thornton have fewer attempts per hour). The upper ranks of this list have some pretty strong talent; Sidney Crosby, Connor McDavid, Jonathan Toews, both Sedins, Johnny Gaudreau, Bergeron, and Toronto’s very own Auston Matthews (Patrick Marleau also ranks favourably). Clearly, he’s finding the net and doing so is a talent in its own regard, but finding the back of it is the issue.

Make no mistake, it’s a drastic one. Using Emmanuel Perry’s expected goals model from Corsica, Hyman has had the seventh-most drastic negative differential of expected goals per hour at even strength compared to his actual goals scored of any forward who played 1000+ minutes in a season in the past decade. His closest comparable? Nazem Kadri in 2015/16. Both lost about 0.49 goals per hour compared to what they were expected to tally, based on where they were taking their shots from.

Kadri was a particularly interesting case, as he came within three goals of his career high while having what looked like the worst season of his career as a shooter. That’s because it was; his shots per game went up as he stepped up into a more important role, but he scored just 6.5% of them, well below his career average.

Had he shot at his career average of 12.5%, he would’ve scored 32-33 goals instead of 17. This year, Kadri shot 13.6% and scored 32 goals.

Now, we don’t have a big enough sample of Hyman’s shooting talent to know for sure what it is in the NHL, but here’s what we do know:

Given what we know about Hyman’s style of play, and where he shoots from, it’s probably fair to assume that he’s better than a 4% shooter at even strength and 6.5% overall. I don’t think anybody will ever confuse him for Steven Stamkos, but I can’t help but wonder the following:

This, of course, is all topical because of the four-year extension that he signed yesterday. I really liked the angle taken by our very own Ryan Fancey this morning, reminding people that $2.25 million isn’t a heck of a lot of money, especially when you’re avoiding arbitration, buying UFA years, and talking about a player who, for better or worse, played on the most important line last year. Hyman compliments the mobile, cycle-driven, puck-retention style of hockey that Mike Babcock wants the Leafs playing, and he’s someone you can slot in on most lines and reap rewards from on special teams. Even if moving to the bottom six (likely with Marleau in now) brings him down to a 20 point per year player that keeps the puck in the right team’s hands and kills some penalties, you’re probably coming out ahead.

But I think there’s a little more left to him from a goal scoring perspective. Maybe being more than an offensive third wheel on a “lesser” line next year will help. Maybe he needs to spend the summer at Mastercard Centre with a few buckets of pucks, a rebounder, and a rapidshot machine until he’s picking corners again. Or maybe he needs to just the odds sort themselves out.

I don’t know what the answer is, but I’m not too worried. Hyman is a useful asset on a fair deal even if he never regains his scoring touch, but if I had to place a bet on this, I’d feel pretty safe in guessing that he’ll bounce back a bit.