Midway through the 1st period of Game 4, Zach Hyman took an awkward hit from Dallas forward Mason Marchment. The 32 year old immediately headed to the bench favouring his right arm and was quickly ruled out for the remainder of the contest. Now it appears as though he may miss the remainder of the postseason as well.
“It’s a big loss,” Oilers forward Ryan Nugent-Hopkins told reporters following the game. “He’s a big part of our team, on and off the ice, the way he does things. You’ve seen his physicality. It’s important to our game, but other guys have already stepped up and tried to fill the gap.”
Head coach Kris Knoblauch told reporters on Wednesday that Hyman would be undergoing surgery and was “most likely” going to miss the remainder of the playoffs.
“We’ll just leave it as upper body,” Knoblauch said. “It will be a while, so we’re not expecting him back for the playoffs.”
“He’s put everything out there. You look at everything he’s done the last two years. Last year, he scored about 70 goals and numerous big important goals in the playoffs. This year, he’s scored key goals but the physical department, how many hits he had, his two-way play was tremendous.”
“And now that we’re going to be missing him, we’ll need other guys to step up.”
Currently leading the postseason with 111 hits, Hyman ranks 5th on the Oilers in points with 11 (5G, 6A) as his team currently holds a 3-1 series advantage over the Stars.
“It’s massive,” Oilers goalie Stuart Skinner said. “You’re missing a key player and also you go down a guy for lines, too, so extra ice time for other guys, which puts some miles on guys. The way that we responded was fantastic. You saw a lot of guys step up, skate hard, hitting guys the way that [Hyman] has been hitting. It’s really important to respond like that when something like that happens.”
“He’s a huge piece, a key piece. He’s a leader in the room. The way he is after every period, he’s never too high, never too low. He is a cliché. He is a hard worker, he grinds, he does the little things right, and on top of that, he’s an amazing human being. You can ask anybody. Everyone loves that guy.”
With forward Connor Brown still sidelined through at least Game 5, that means that the Oilers forward group will see some reshuffling of lines in the immediate future. Jeff Skinner is likely to draw back into the lineup, with Viktor Arvidsson continuing to fill in for Brown. Skinner has been a healthy scratch for the past 14 games after forward Evander Kane made his return from a season long injury.
“My time here, we’ve been pretty fortunate with injuries. Especially last year, we hardly had anything,” Knoblauch continued. “And this year, for the first three-quarters of the season there was minimal time off for guys. And then it really piled up at the end of the season with numerous key guys.”
“McDavid, Draisaitl, Ekholm, Hyman, just to name a few. And now in playoffs, there’s going to be times when guys are banged up and that’s part of the game. Right now, we’re missing some guys. Obviously, Zach’s going to be a huge hole, but we’re fortunate to have a lot of depth that guys can come in, step up and give us quality minutes.”
Game 5 of the Western Conference Finals takes place Thursday night at 8pm ET in Dallas.
Photo: Jenn G. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.