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What Zach Hyman said after netting hat trick in Edmonton Oilers win

Preston Hodgkinson
Preston Hodgkinson
|
Dec 12 2025, 1:00 pm
What Zach Hyman said after netting hat trick in Edmonton Oilers win
Walter Tychnowicz/Imagn Images

Zach Hyman has returned to his scoring ways with the Edmonton Oilers.

After missing the first month of the season, it took a while for the 33-year-old to get back to his old self. He was still forchecking and being a nuisance in front of the opposing net, but the goals were a bit hard to come by, which isn’t something Hyman is used to since joining the Oilers.

He has notched at least 27 goals in each of his four seasons in the Alberta capital, but was stuck at just two through his first 11 games of the season. That all changed on Thursday night against the Detroit Red Wings, as Hyman captured his sixth career NHL hat trick to help the Oilers cruise to a 4-1 victory.

Connor McDavid assisted on all three goals from Hyman, though it looked like he was deciding whether to pass the puck back to the Oilers captain on the hat trick marker.

“It felt good to get a hat trick, it’s been a while,” Hyman told Sportsnet’s Gene Principe after the game. “There was a chance [I would pass it to McDavid] for sure. If the [defenceman] lunged at me, I would have passed it, but I guess I faked it.”

With the hat trick performance, Hyman more than doubled his goal total to five on the season. The first two, which were scored against an actual goalie and not an empty net, were about as classic as it gets for Hyman.

He was poking his nose around the front of the net and was able to pot home a couple of excellent passes from McDavid. The second goal in particular was a sight to see, as McDavid managed to find Hyman with a pass through his legs from behind the Detroit net.

That top line of McDavid, Hyman, and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins seems to once again be a force to be reckoned with.

“[McDavid] creates for himself, he creates for others, he’s unanimously the best player in the world for a reason,” Hyman said of his captain. “Those [kind of passes] are nice, gotta make sure you put those in.”

Edmonton ended their five-game homestand with a very respectable 3-1-1 record and captured seven of a possible 10 points. That is exactly the type of trajectory the team will want to see as they embark on another five-game road trip out east.

Perhaps Hyman can add to his goal totals when he plays his former team, the Toronto Maple Leafs, on Saturday night.

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