March 28, 2024 by Josh Boulton

Zach Hyman scored his 50th goal of the season as the Edmonton Oilers dropped a 4-3 decision to the Ottawa Senators on Sunday. Hyman became just the 6th player in franchise history to score 50 goals in a single season.

With the incredible run the club had back in the 1980s when NHL scoring was at an all-time high, it’s remarkable three of those six players are on the current roster. Only 98 players league wide have ever had at least one season scoring 50 goals, and 60% of them did so between 1980 and 2000. Only 20 more players have accomplished the feat since, including Hyman and Sam Reinhart this season, who both scored their 50th goals on the same day.

Then, Hyman reached another personal milestone, notching the 200th career NHL goal and the overtime winner in a 4-3 victory over the Winnipeg Jets on Tuesday. Cracking an NHL lineup is hard enough. Lasting long enough to score 200 career goals is something only a very small percentage of NHLers experience. The rugged winger has established himself as arguably the greatest net front player of this generation, especially on the powerplay. His work ethic, tenacity, and positive attitude have made him a fan favorite in Edmonton and an unusually well respected player all around the league. As such, his accomplishments are rightly being celebrated as the top feel-good story of the moment.

His 50-goal season is an inspiration to young players everywhere. Not everyone can be a Connor McDavid or a Leon Draisaitl, but if you work hard enough and have the right mindset, you can be a Zach Hyman. It’s a great message that promotes exactly the coachable qualities you sign your kid up in hockey to learn.

It’s that very message that prompted hockey analyst Andrew Berkshire to make a video pointing out something else about Hyman’s rise to elite hockey status: his privileged background. He says it’s unfair to send the message about hard work and ignore the rest of the story about wealth and access. I’m not going to even pretend to interpret or summarize the video any more than I already have. If you’re interested in his point I encourage you to listen to his own words and make up your own mind. What I will say is that in any discussion of this nature there needs to be a separation of two distinct points.

The first point is, yes, hockey is traditionally a sport more easily dominated by players with more access to ice time, the best equipment, the best trainers, and the most travel opportunities. In short, players who have a lot of financial support. This is true of anything, but the cost of mandatory equipment and the need for a facility with ice making capabilities does arguably make hockey even less accessible than other common team sports. Professional hockey is an already difficult market to crack, but it becomes even more so for the general population when you consider cost commitment. To simply say “all it takes is hard work” can be a pretty dejecting statement to the player with all heart and no privilege or backing.

The second point is exceptionally hard work is more likely to get you exceptionally farther no matter where you start. What’s unfair is to brush off a wealthy or privileged person’s accomplishments solely based off the fact they had unique, maybe even unearned, opportunities to get started. Yes, Hyman had every opportunity in the world to get where he is, but he lives and works in a world where so did almost everyone else. He had to find a way to set himself apart.

His award history doesn’t just include hockey points and hockey skill related recognition. Throughout his entire career from Junior to college to professional the University of Michigan alumnus has been recognized for his academic achievements, his work ethic both on the ice, commitment to strength and conditioning, and for being a good role model and a genuinely decent person. These things aren’t just what people say about him. He received literal separate awards for each of those characteristics. His style of play is not for the feint of heart either, scoring many of his 200 goals from inside the crease or close to it, and living in what are known as “the dirty areas” of a hockey rink. Yet he somehow doesn’t get sucked into all the unsportsmanlike shenanigans that usually take place amongst frequent visitors to those spaces.

The bottom line is wealth and privilege alone only get a person so far. Eventually the playing field levels and you have to do all those little things that have nothing to do with how you got there and everything to do with making the absolute most of an opportunity once you have it. It’s all those little things that make Zack Hyman one of the most admirable standout players even in a league full of elite hockey players who aren’t willing to do what he does.