Coffin, meet nail.
Or as the Edmonton Oilers like to refer to him, Zach Hyman.
He punched not one, but two into the Dallas Stars with a pair of third-period goals to put it well out of reach on the way to a 6-1 win in Game 3 on Sunday, to take a 2-1 series lead in the Western Conference final.
But he didn’t just use his stick. His tool of choice throughout these playoffs has been a hammer, earning 10 hits on Sunday to add to his league-leading 108 — a full 30 ahead of the runner up.
“It’s impressive to watch, amazing to watch. And I get a front row seat to it every night,” McDavid said. “He’s a wrecking ball out there.
“Everybody is buying in, though, and doing things that maybe aren’t the most comfortable or the things they’re not the most used to doing. Obviously he’s leading the way that way.”
After scoring for the first time in seven games, Hyman is no longer simply satisfied with beating you up, he wants to beat your goalie too.
Up to that point, the Stars still had a puncher’s chance, trailing 3-1 after giving up a goal to Connor McDavid (for his second of the game) in the dying seconds of the second period.
“It’s a huge goal there, they’re pushing, they’re playing better than us and to re-establish a two-goal lead going into the third is massive,” Hyman said. I think people forget he’s a 60-goal scorer.
“He’s probably an underrated goals scorer. He can score goals and he just makes the right play whether it’s a pass or a goal. He’s the best player in the world and when he has an opportunity to shoot and he shoots it, it’s a good chance it goes.”
Hyman is no slouch in the scoring department, either. Fresh off the first 50-goal season of his career, things might have dipped a bit offensively for the 32-year-old veteran of 10 NHL seasons this year, which saw him record 27 goals to go along with 17 assists — exactly half the amount of rubber he buried in the 2023-24 regular season.
But at this point, six wins away from the ultimate prize this team feels let slip from their grip in Game 7 of last year’s Stanley Cup Final, playoff goals are a quality that far outweighs any regular-season quantity.
And Hyman’s breakaway was of utmost quality Sunday.
He needed just 3:25 into the third to score on a breakaway set up by a long bomb of a pass from Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, and followed up eight minutes later with his second of the game to, well, put the proverbial nail in the coffin of the Stars.
Yes, the same Stars who won Game 1 on a trio of third-period power-play goals. Other than that one lopsided six-minute span, this series has belonged almost entirely to the Oilers, who stole home-ice advantage away from the Stars and have another inside the friendly confines of Rogers Place on Tuesday (6 p.m., CBC, Sportsnet).
“That’s probably that play sums up the game, I guess,” Hyman said of the breakaway. “They had a couple of looks before (Stuart Skinner) bailed us out.
“We turned it over a couple of times and there was a break and I was able to get behind the D and Nuge made an amazing pass and had a lot of time.”
While Hyman and the Oilers made good on more scoring opportunities, the Stars came up with more opportunities, outshooting Edmonton 37-24.
And all the Hymans and McDavids in the world wouldn’t amount for anything if it hadn’t been for Skinner’s play in net Sunday.
He has allowed one goal in his last three wins, drawing to an even 4-4 in these playoffs with the Game 3 victory.
Oh, and let’s not forget his three shutout efforts.
At this point, it’s safe to say the good has outweighed the bad, even if the 20 goals he’s allowed in the four losses jumps out of the page compared to the one goal he’s allowed in his wins.
