Oilers’ Hyman’s season over after Game 4 injury vs. Stars

Zach Hyman will likely miss the rest of the season after having surgery on Wednesday morning. CTV News Edmonton's Nahreman Issa has the story.

Zach Hyman’s season – including his gritty, game-shifting playoff performances for the Edmonton Oilers – is over.

Head coach Kris Knoblauch broke the news to media on Wednesday, the morning after his National Hockey League team’s 4-1 victory over the Dallas Stars to go up three games to one in the best-of-seven Western Conference final.

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Knoblauch said Hyman would have surgery after the winger suffered an upper-body injury halfway through the first period of action at Edmonton’s Rogers Place.

“He’s getting surgery today,” Knoblauch said before the Oilers left Edmonton for Dallas, where they and the Stars will play Game 5 of the series on Thursday. “It’ll be a while, so we’re not expecting him back for the playoffs.”

Hyman was injured 9:13 into the opening frame when Stars winger Mason Marchment hit him in the right shoulder/arm. Marchment’s skates left the ice on the hit, and he wasn’t playing the puck when he made contact with Hyman. No penalty was called on the play.

Hyman sits fifth in Oilers’ scoring with five goals and six assists in 15 games played and is third in team plus-minus at plus-11.

The 32-year-old winger leads the NHL in post-season hits by a wide margin with 104, 26 more than second-place Sam Bennett of the Florida Panthers.

Crude remarks

• Knoblauch said Wednesday injured winger Connor Brown will not be back in the Oilers’ lineup for Game 5 against the Stars. Brown left the Oilers’ 6-1 Game 3 win late in the second period after a hit by Stars defenceman Alex Petrovic;
• The coach suggested two players who could step into the lineup with both Hyman and Brown out for Thursday’s game: Jeff Skinner and Derek Ryan. “We’ve got Jeff Skinner who’s available, who hasn’t played very much. He is a really good hockey player. Derek Ryan’s not playing. Last year, he was in almost all the playoff games,” Knoblauch said. “I thought we were very fortunate to have the depth that we had last year, and this year, we’re probably a little step above that.”
• Knoblauch said he expects the Stars will show “a lot of urgency” in Game 5. “When your back’s against the wall, we saw it several times last year, and it brought out the best of our team, playing with a lot of desperation and focus and just laying it on the line every single shift,” he said. “We can’t control what the other team’s going to do. What we can control is how we play and how we handle those circumstances … we’re going to have to be prepared.”