SUNRISE, Fla. — Zach Hyman prides himself on punching the clock and going to work.
So it took a suspension, not injury, for him to miss his first game since he established himself as an NHL regular three years ago.
“It felt like a month,” Hyman told reporters of his two-game ban for a late check on Boston defenceman Charlie McAvoy.
“I miss playing hockey. I miss being out there with the guys, but they played two really good games, so it was fun to watch.”
Hyman will resume his position on the left wing of John Tavares and Mitch Marner Saturday, bumping Connor Brown down to the fourth line and Frederik Gauthier likely out of the lineup. (Auston Matthews continued to centre Kasperi Kapanen and Andreas Johnsson at practice Friday.)
During Brown’s two-game promotion to the top six, he registered four shots and failed to get on the scoreboard. Tavares scored once; Marner had an assist.
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In no uncertain terms, coach Mike Babcock reiterated Hyman’s importance as a complement to his prolific scorers Friday.
“We get the puck all the time. So suddenly 91 and 16 have the puck all the time. I don’t know if anybody here realizes that,” Babcock said. “They haven’t had it for two games. Why?”
Tavares, too, praised Hyman’s dependability on the forecheck, and his knack for sustaining pressure at one end and relieving it at the other.
“Great to have Zach back,” Tavares said. “There’s just so much trust in his game and so much predictability.”
What makes Hyman so integral to the Leafs’ most productive line is that he’s easy for Tavares and Marner to read off his next move and his determination to win 50/50 puck battles.
“Even those ones where you don’t think he’s going to come out with it, he finds a way,” Tavares said. “He puts so much pressure on the D with his speed and his strength.”
Which is exactly what got Hyman in hot water in the first place.
In Saturday’s heated, lopsided loss to Boston Saturday, Hyman delivered an uncharacteristically late check on McAvoy, who was still fresh off a month-long concussion.
“I thought it was unnecessary,” Bruins coach Bruce Cassidy said post-game. “Especially when it’s Charlie, who just came back. So you’re wondering, are they targeting him or not? You don’t know that. I’d like to think it was just a guy playing hard and got there late and didn’t pull up, but our guys responded well.”
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While far from a league villain, Hyman, who fought Matt Grzelyck after the hit, provides a measure of sandpaper lacking from a club built for speed and skill.
Toronto takes the fewer penalties than any club (6.8 PIMs per game) and throws fewer checks than any team in the East (17.9 per game).
Hyman leads all Leafs in hits per game (1.8), and although another show of recklessness would be surprising, we shouldn’t expect the interference suspension to dull a critical facet of his game.
Maple Leafs’ mighty power play hits the skids
Take a cursory glance at the NHL standings, with the Maple Leafs standing tall at second overall and the Panthers struggling to stay out of the Eastern basement.
Now guess which team operates the more effective power play.
Wrong. It’s Florida, which for all its flaws is humming along at a 26.7 per cent clip with the man advantage, good for fifth in the NHL.
Toronto’s much-discussed, top-heavy special team has slipped to eighth overall (24.1%) and fallen behind last season’s pace (25%).
You can blame human highlight reel Andrei Vasilevskiy for playing a significant role in that, which he certainly did Thursday. Or you could subscribe to Babcock’s theory that a team needs two dangerous units to be produce at a higher rate, as opposed to letting the Matthews-Tavares-Marner-Kadri-Rielly group roll around for two minutes.
Since William Nylander restarted his NHL career four games ago, the Leafs are 1-for-16 (six per cent) on the power play.
“Willy is working his way back,” said Babcock. “Once Willy gets going, we’ll have two groups as well.”
More than one way to skin a Cat
Toronto is catching Florida at full swoon.
The Panthers (11-13-6) have lost four straight by a combined score of 19-10.
After Thursday’s 5-1 beatdown in Minnesota, coach Bob Boughner said his top line, led by Aleksander Barkov, “looked slow all game” and called out his players’ pride, noting that some gave up before the buzzer.
“I don’t know what needs to change, but we’ll figure it out at some point,” Aaron Ekblad told reporters. “We need to.”
A trendy off-season pick to climb back into the wild-card conversation, Florida has been forced to inject unproven youth into a forward corps set back with a trio of in-season surgeries (Vincent Trocheck, Derek MacKenzie, Jamie McGinn) and a day-to-day ailment for Nick Bjugstad, who could return Saturday.
The Cats’ .467 points percentage ranks second-worst in the Eastern Conference (only the New Jersey Devils are worse off), but considering Toronto has lost three of its past four, don’t expect the Leafs to take their opponents lightly. The moms are watching.
“They’re in the National Hockey League. They’re coming to play hard. They’ve got some real high-end players,” Babcock said. “They’re dangerous on the power play, so we’ve got to be ready.”
Dubas chuffed with goaltending prospect
Before rewarding him with an entry-level contract Friday afternoon, two of the past three tweets on Leafs GM Kyle Dubas’s timeline were in praise of goaltending prospect Ian Scott.
The 19-year-old Prince Albert Raiders netminder, selected 110th overall in 2017, is on pace for his best season, and it’s not even close.
In his past three WHL campaigns, Scott failed to get his save percentage above .897. This year, he’s rolling at a .943 clip, leading to a sparkling 23-2-1 record with four shutouts — and a goal.
The Raiders are the toast of Western circuit, with a ridiculous .922 points percentage, and Scott has had a big hand in that success.
He shoots, he scores! @MapleLeafs prospect @IceScott99 scores his first career WHL goal tonight for the @PARaidersHockey! pic.twitter.com/NeGYJgectN
— The WHL (@TheWHL) November 17, 2018