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Colton Dach Tries To Emulate Zach Hyman
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- Colton Dach Tries To Emulate Zach Hyman
Colton Dach has been doing the smart thing and watching a lot of Zach Hyman's film this summer.
"I've been watching some games, and I've really focused on what Hyman does," Dach told Sports 1440. "How he uses his body. He is great at gaining space and positioning by using his body, and with my size, that is something I can do more of."
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Dach, while among a long list of young players attempting to emulate well-known players, appears to understand which parts of Hyman's game he should learn from.
He's 6-foot-4. Use it.
Hyman has been one of the Edmonton Oilers' most valuable forwards for years because he's figured out how to make himself useful to extremely talented players without asking them to change how they play. McDavid and Draisaitl want the puck, and Hyman is perfectly happy to go get it for them, then race the net, get in the goalie's face, and potentially score a goal in his most popular spot.
There are people out there who look at Hyman's 54-goal season and think of him as the player who happened to play beside McDavid, accounting for his level of production. But plenty of players have had the same opportunity over the years, Andrew Mangiapane for example, without becoming indispensable to the Oilers roster.
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Hyman wins pucks without getting pushed away from the net easily, and when a play breaks down, he's often the player who keeps it alive long enough for Edmonton to recover. None of this requires him to carry the puck through three players or make a pass nobody else saw as his center does.
And as Dach has realized, he shouldn't be trying to do those things, either.
There is skill in Dach's game, enough that he doesn't have to spend his career as a fourth-line hitter, but Edmonton isn't short on players who want to be in the top six. Matt Savoie and Isaac Howard will likely play alongside McDavid, Draisaitl, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, Hyman, and Vasily Podkolsin.
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Finding a job in that group means giving the Oilers something they don't already have enough of. Perhaps another Zach Hyman, a player no one has enough of.
Hyman himself is not a 50-goal scorer every year, and it would be unrealistic to expect that of Dach, but he can, and should, get to the net. He can make somebody move 6-foot-4 and more than 200 pounds before they can defend the front of the net.
Big players get told to use their size from the time they're teenagers, usually because coaches can't think of anything more creative to say to somebody who happens to be taller than everyone else. By watching Hyman, Dach can learn where to be, how aggressive to get, how to play with a first-line center, and anything else that comes with that game.
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It would also give Mike Babcock a good reason to put him higher in the lineup. A big winger who can play around the net, retrieve pucks and hold his own can move throughout a lineup. Put him in the bottom six and ask him to create some offence off the forecheck; he'll do it. Move him up when somebody gets hurt and let him do the dirty work for better offensive players; he can do that too.
Hyman has spent years showing why coaches value that kind of player. Oilers fans have come to value it just as much. Hyman doesn't have to be the most talented player on his line to be one of the most important, and there aren't many questions about what he brings when the scoring dries up for a few games.
Dach could pick worse homework.
In fact, he probably couldn't pick much better.
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