Dustin Schwartz has been the Oilers' goalie coach for the last 10 years, and often draws criticism from fans for the team's struggles in the crease. However, Zach Hyman is praising him for his coaching abilities, and even chuckling while he said it.
Hyman made is return from injury last night, an undisclosed problem he sustained against the Ottawa Senators, and missed 5 games as a result.
While he wasn't ready for game action or to join the team in practice, it's great that Hyman and Schwartz were able to get some work in on his touches around the net. It paid off big time in his first game back.
Through the early part of the season, Hyman had been in quite a scoring slump with only 2 goals in 20 games.
In his first game back against Columbus last night, that extra work on puck touches showed as he buried two goals.
Not only that, but it was Zach Hyman's first game since news broke that he would be cut from Team Canada's roster at the 4 Nations Faceoff. Scoring two goals and having a dominant all around game is definitely a response to the sting of not making Canada.
As for Dustin Schwartz, well, it's good to see that at least he can help the skaters. Jury is still out on the goalies after 10 years, though.
Hopefully the veteran Oilers forward can harness this motivation to prove himself and shake off this early season slump. The Edmonton Oilers currently only have 1 forward with more than 4 goals not named McDavid or Draisaitl - so they need Hyman to pick it up.
POLL | ||
Do you think Zach Hyman should have made the Team Canada roster? | ||
Yes | 41 | 65.1 % |
No | 19 | 30.2 % |
See Results | 3 | 4.8 % |
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