Zach Hyman is still in search of his first goal of the 2024-25 season, but he managed to get his first point of the year, and 400th in his career, on Friday night against the Pittsburgh Penguins in a 4-0 win.

The point came in the form of an assist on Ryan Nugent-Hopkins’ goal just 16 seconds into the third period. Oilers defenceman Mattias Ekholm, who got the secondary assist, would keep a puck in at the offensive blue line, which bounced towards Hyman, getting a stick on it stalling the puck for Nugent-Hopkins.

The latter would pick it up and fire it home, extending the Oilers lead to 3-0.

Hyman has a slow start to his career in terms of producing offence, scoring 86 goals and 185 points in his 345 NHL games with the Toronto Maple Leafs, averaging 0.54 per game. But after signing as a free agent in July 2022, that completely changed, as he’s now totalled 215 points in the blue and orange in just 243 games, a 0.88 per game pace.

Most of that production, mind you, has come in the goal department, with Hyman racking up an impressive 117 through his first three seasons with the Oilers. It all culminated in his 2023-24 campaign in which he scored 54 goals, a career-high mark. He hit the 50-goal mark on March 24th, 2024 against the Ottawa Senators, becoming the 99th player in NHL history to do so.

What’s even more impressive about is that Hyman became the third-oldest player in league history to hit the mark at 31 years and 289 days old, falling short of just Johnny Buyck (35 years, 308 days old) and Joe Mullen (32 years, 33 days old).

Hyman signed a seven-year, $5.5-million AAV deal when he joined the Oilers, and it didn’t take long for him to make that contract look like a steal. Hyman would set career highs in goals and assists, with 27 each, and points with 54 in his first season with the Oilers, increasing those numbers to 36, 47 and 83, respectively, in his second season. While he hit the 54 goal mark last year, that production came at the expense of some assists, as his total dipped to just 23.

Still, the Oilers third post was a huge part of the teams success last year, and he carried that into the playoffs during the teams run to Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals, leading all playoff scorers with 16 goals — a mark that fell three short of tying the all-time single playoff record shared with Reggie Leach (1975-76) and Jari Kurri (1984-85), who each scored 19.

Zach Laing is the Nation Network’s news director and senior columnist, making up one-half of the DFO DFS Report. He can be followed on Twitter at @zjlaing, or reached by email at zach@thenationnetwork.com.