GENE'S BLOG: New Hy Score

At the 16:26 mark of the second period, Connor McDavid picked up assist 91 and Evan Bouchard pitched in with helper 57, but those weren't the most important numbers on the play.

Parked in his office (or close to it) at the side of the Ottawa net on Sunday night in the nation's capital, Edmonton's number 18 scored his team's third goal of the game.

It happened on the power play as the Senators' Ridley Greig sat in the penalty box. Six seconds after he arrived, so did the fourth goal of game 1,128 during the 2023-24 NHL season. Leon Draisaitl was on the ice and so was Ryan Nugent Hopkins, but it was the fifth member of Edmonton's man-advantage crew who scored the goal.

His name? Zachary Martin Hyman. His goal? Number 50 on the season.

It wasn't a surprise, but that didn't diminish the impact of a moment so special it puts the Toronto-born goal-getter in elite company. It's automatic to say Hyman is elite when you join Wayne Gretzky, Jari Kurri, Mark Messier, Glenn Anderson, Draisaitl and McDavid as the only Oilers to wear the uniform for 50 or more goals in a season. Not to be forgotten is Craig Simpson who potted 56 in 1987-88 by scoring 13 with Pittsburgh and 43 more with Edmonton.

There is something special about scoring 50 goals. It always has been since it was first done by Maurice "Rocket" Richard for the Montreal Canadiens in 1944-45. He did so in exactly 50 games. It set a standard for others to follow even though it wasn't until 16 seasons later that Bernie "Boom Boom" Geoffrion was the next 50-goal scorer, again doing it for Montreal.

It was during Hyman's ninth season that 50 happened for him. Put him down as a work in progress or, better yet, hard work in progress. That's the only way he does it is to work harder than anyone else on the ice.

It might be the best way to explain how an NHL player started his career with 10 goals in his first full season and now has multiplied that by five. In between his 10- and 50-goal seasons the winger put up goal-scoring campaigns of 15, 21, 21,15 (in the shortened season), 27 and 36 before what happened on the second-last Sunday of March.

March is what's he's done to the mecca moment of goal-scoring lore. There have been 60, 70, 80 and 90-goal seasons, but 50 is still the standard-set number for achieving something special. It's what the former Leaf and current Oiler achieved in the second leg of a three-game road trip.

To say Hyman is a hard worker and that's why he succeeded by hitting 50 goals would only be telling part of the 31-year-old's story. Yes, he is a hard worker, often citing his father Stuart and mother Vicki as the cornerstones in establishing this mindset for him and his four brothers.

Yes, he does play with the best player in the world in McDavid. It's an advantage that Hyman has never shied away from admitting himself. However, to say he scored 50 goals because he works hard and happens to be on a line with the game's greatest player would be unfair and untrue.

There is also a skill and a talent required to score goals. He has it and has proven it with his growing seasonal numbers. Where to go? When to be there? How to finish? Hyman has figured it out.

There's a saying that "nice guys finish last' but in fact Hyman will finish first in goals for Edmonton this season and perhaps in the Western Conference as well, with Colorado's Nathan MacKinnon currently sitting a ways behind with 44 tallies.

Hyman would be a unanimous choice for the NHL's all-nice team. This doesn't mean he's not focused, motivated or determined to do his best, but along the way he's been able to make many more friends and likely not one enemy.

Probably not surprising for a guy who writes children's books in his limited spare time.

The author of Hockey Hero, The Magician's Secret and The Bambino and Me has also penned one of the more captivating goal-scoring stories in NHL history with a few more chapters still to be written.