Having a Seat Over There: Zach Hyman

A week ago, I mentioned that the Canadian Junior A Player of the Year, Zach Hyman, was considering Michigan. Today, he decided to become a Wolverine.

As, I believe, first reported by Andy Strickland, then confirmed by Bob Miller, Hyman will play at Michigan next season. Bob says that he's signing on Friday.

It's hard to understate how large of a development this is. We just picked up the college-eligible player in all of Canada. And he's coming to Michigan for THIS COMING SEASON. This isn't getting all excited about the prospect of Max Domi. This isn't looking ahead to what could be a ridiculous class in 2013. This isn't Tristin Llewellyn being a top prospect as a 14 year-old. This is a five-star prospect for next season. Immediate impact. You could make the case that he's the top recruit in this class. (Edit: To clarify, that's based on him being the top junior player in Canada more than any awareness of the rest of the players out there.) This is potentially the offense that we could be lacking next season.

Let's take a look at some of the other players that have won the CJHL Player of the Year award, decided to play college, and how they did freshman year:

Player	Year	Team	GP	Line
Cody Kunyk	2010	Alaska	38	12-18--30
Eric Delong	2009	Sacred Heart	35	15-20--35
Joe Colborne	2008	Denver	40	10-21--31
Kyle Turris	2007	Wisconsin	36	11-24--35
Nick Johnson	2004	Darmouth	35	18-17--35
Mark Bomersback	2003	Ferris State	37	8-10--18
Jeff Tambellini	2002	Michigan	43	26-19--45
Tyler Brosz	2001	Minnesota-Duluth	40	5-6--11
Junior Lessard	2000	Minnesota-Duluth	36	4-8--12
Dany Heatley	1999	Wisconsin	38	28-28--56
Mike Comrie	1998	Michigan	42	19-25--44

So out of the last 11 guys that won CJHL Player of the Year and went on to play college hockey, 8 scored double-digit goals and 30+ points as a freshman. One of the three that didn't hit either of those plateaus (Lessard) ended up scoring 32-31--63 as a senior and won the Hobey. Brosz and Bomersback ended up with a 30/40 point season as well.

At the low-end, these guys ended up being fairly-productive college players with at least one great season. At the high-end, they put up really good numbers right out of the gate and ultimately became Hobey Baker-caliber players. Lessard and Kariya won the award. Comrie, Heatley, and Tambellini would have arguably been the favorite to win the award the next season had they not turned pro.

History says that you can pencil in Hyman for 10-15 goals and 30-35 points next season. This late in the game, to pull in someone who could potentially approach a point per game as a freshman is a huge, huge pickup.

Bob Miller linked out to a couple of GREAT articles. The first talks about how it seems like he's got his head on straight, actually backs it up when he talks about caring about academics, and is just a great kid. The second is a Q&A with him after he won the Player of the Year award.

There are many more links in the first article. Mark Seidel, the chief North American scout for CSS, wrote the following:

...along with being an impressive physical specimen, he showed that he could really play this year as well by putting up 75 points on a decent Tier 2 team while showing he understands the game as well as any in the draft. His dad owns my chief competitor, ISS, so it pains me to say, but this kid may become the steal of the draft

Hockey's Future (yeah, I know) mentioned that prior to juniors (when he played at a lower-level to maintain his college eligibility), Hyman was thought to be on the same level as Jeff Skinner and Tyler Seguin. If that's true, yikes.

Here's a really interesting article about his father's dealings in hockey. Baller.

Hyman was the captain of his team last season and put up 42-60--102.

Gotta love that Red Berenson snake-oil! 

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