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If the Oilers have found the perfect complementary winger for Connor McDavid in Zach Hyman, what might the scoring ceiling be for Edmonton’s superstar centre?

That was the question on my mind after Edmonton’s pre-season drubbing of the Seattle Kraken and this wondrous goal in particular – a Hyman tap-in after some electric playmaking from McDavid and Jesse Puljujarvi.

No one is going to conclude anything from pre-season, but the Oilers invested heavily in Hyman this off-season because they think his tool box makes the Oilers’ top line even more dangerous, which is hard to fathom.

General manager Ken Holland could have targeted any number of wingers through trade or free agency this off-season, and many of those would have offered more in the offensive firepower department. Hyman has never scored more than 21 goals or tallied more than 41 points in a single season, and though we expect that number to move north playing with McDavid, it’s unclear where the ceiling might be.

But Hyman was brought in for more than just scoring. He’s a forechecking dynamo and an excellent defensive winger, the latter of which should be quite useful for a player like McDavid. The Oilers have struggled mightily to turn all of McDavid’s scoring into something meaningful in the standings, largely because the team gives up too many goals with him on the ice.

If we look at the spread of player individual scoring versus their realized net goal differential, we see a very predictable linear trend – the more you score, the more you drive goal differentials, the more your team wins games. But that success can vary contingent on many factors, defensive performance being just one of them.

Here’s the relationship between rate individual scoring and rate net goals over the past three seasons. Pay careful attention to where McDavid is relative to his peers:

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Despite McDavid being 56 points more productive than Hyman in the offensive end, Hyman’s net goal differential was substantially better. Hyman’s situation was favourable – he was the second (and in some cases third) best player on his own line, Toronto was a better and deeper team than Edmonton over this stretch, and the Maple Leafs goaltenders were materially better (91.8 per cent stop rate versus 91.2 per cent, respectively).

This isn’t to compare Hyman to McDavid. But it does show two things. One, how players with very complementary skill sets – say the likes of Hyman and Auston Matthews – can combine to create a sum of output greater than the individual parts. Two, that the Oilers have not been able to translate all this freakish McDavid firepower into wins.

McDavid is easily the best player on the planet, but there are several other players who have scored at high-end rates over this same interval. Consider these players – across different teams and different environments – and the way in which the goals fell with them on the ice versus McDavid:

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A player with 69 goals and 181 even-strength points over the past three seasons should have been enough to put Edmonton at or near the top of the Pacific Division. But that’s not the case.

Chalk it up to defensive performance or the goaltending behind him, McDavid’s line – despite being the deadliest attacking unit in the league – does not drive the results you would expect. We know this because most other high-end scorers, irrespective of whether they played on a great team or a poor team, drove considerably better goal differentials. In fact, the average goal differential for this group is 58 per cent better than McDavid’s number (+0.32.). It’s almost impossible to believe!

That’s why the Hyman gambit by the Oilers’ front office is so fascinating, and it’s why this line is must-watch television this season. The game-breaking, electric offensive players will be there all year long; what I’m just as curious to see is if the Oilers can cut down on heinous defensive numbers. Only three players (Chris Tierney, Pavel Zacha, and Patrik Laine) have seen more goals against than McDavid and his line over the past three seasons.

It simply must change. If it does, there’s no reason Edmonton can’t contend for the top spot in the Pacific. If it doesn’t, the Oilers will be in familiar territory, fighting through the middle of the pack in the Western Conference.

It puts a lot of pressure for Hyman (and by extension, McDavid) to trim that ugly 3.3 goals per 60 minutes number down. But that’s why they make the big bucks!

Data via Natural Stat Trick, Evolving Hockey, NHL.com