Oilers' Zach Hyman leaves Game 4 after hit from Stars' Mason Marchment

EDMONTON, Alberta (AP) — Zach Hyman has lowered the boom on opponents all spring.

The workhorse winger for the Edmonton Oilers by a wide margin led the NHL with 109 playoff hits entering Tuesday night.

Hyman found himself on the receiving end early in Game 4 of the NHL’s Western Conference final and it didn’t look good.

Hyman left midway through the first period of Edmonton’s 4-1 victory over Dallas that gave the Oilers a 3-1 lead in the best-of-seven series after taking a glancing hit from Stars winger Mason Marchment coming out of the defensive zone.

He dropped his stick, clearly favoring his right arm, and made a beeline for the bench before heading to Edmonton’s locker room with the team’s medical staff.

Oilers coach Kris Knoblauch didn’t have a postgame update following a result that moved his team within one win of another trip to the Stanley Cup final.

“Everyone stepped up,” he added. “Go through the lineup … I liked how everyone just played a little bit better.”

Knoblauch distributed Hyman’s minutes among his forward depth, with both Trent Frederic and Corey Perry seeing time on captain Connor McDavid’s wing through two periods.

Edmonton’s bench boss then leaned heavily on Leon Draisaitl in the third by double-shifting the big center as Edmonton squeezed the life out of Dallas.

“You’re not just going to make that up,” Draisaitl, who had a goal and an assist, said of Hyman’s absence. “But collectively, I think we have what it takes to make up for it.”

Hyman started the night with 27 more postseason hits than Florida Panthers center Sam Bennett to go along with five goals and six assists.

Hyman, who added two more hits to his tally before exiting Tuesday, scored 54 times last season before adding 16 more in the playoffs as part of the Oilers’ run to the final, where they lost to the Florida Panthers in seven games.

A free-agent signing in the summer of 2021 after six seasons with the Maple Leafs, Hyman had 27 goals and 17 assists for 44 points across 73 games in 2024-25.

“It’s a big loss,” said Edmonton forward Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, who had another two assists to give him nine points in the series. “He’s a big part of our team, on and off the ice, the way he does things. You’ve seen his physicality.

“It’s important to our game, but other guys have already stepped up and tried to fill that gap.”

The Oilers more than doubled the Stars with 50 hits Tuesday. Vasily Podkolzin led the way with eight, while Kasperi Kapanen added seven. Knoblauch also pointed to the reunited line of Podkolzin, Mattias Janmark and Viktor Arvidsson helping to pick up the slack.

“I thought we dealt with it good,” Draisaitl said. “The guys that were maybe a little further down the lineup, obviously got their minutes elevated a little bit.”

Edmonton, which has weathered the storm on the back end in these playoffs with the soon-to-be-healthy blue liner Mattias Ekholm sidelined, was already dealing with one injury up front after Connor Brown took a huge hit in Sunday’s 6-1 victory in Game 3.

The Oilers could elect to go with 11 forwards and seven defensemen in Game 5 on Thursday night if their two injured wingers can’t go and Ekholm is ready.

“He’s a huge piece, a key piece,” Edmonton goaltender Stuart Skinner, who put in another outstanding effort with 28 saves, said of Hyman. “He is a cliché. He is a hard worker, he grinds, he does the little things right, and on top of that, he’s an amazing human being.

Perry, who at age 40 has seen a lot of hockey, said Hyman is “a dog-on-the-bone” for Edmonton.

“He wants the puck,” he said. “If he doesn’t have it, he’s chasing it down. That’s Zach Hyman hockey.”

The Oilers had to do without his relentless approach in Game 4. How long that lasts will come into better focus before the team boards a plane Wednesday just 60 minutes from another appearance in the final.

“Guys are ready to step up,” Nugent-Hopkins said. “Everybody’s just chomping at the bit to get out there.

“Part of it felt like we were doing it for Zach.”

AP NHL playoffs: https://apnews.com/hub/stanley-cup and https://apnews.com/hub/nhl

Dallas Stars' Jason Robertson (21) and Edmonton Oilers' Zach Hyman (18) battle for the puck during first period NHL Western Conference final playoff action, in Edmonton on Tuesday, May 27, 2025. (Jason Franson/The Canadian Press via AP)

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — President Donald Trump on Sunday fired off another warning to the government of Cuba as the close ally of Venezuela braces for potential widespread unrest after Nicolás Maduro was deposed as Venezuela's leader.

Cuba, a major beneficiary of Venezuelan oil, has now been cut off from those shipments as U.S. forces continue to seize tankers in an effort to control the production, refining and global distribution of the country's oil products.

Trump said on social media that Cuba long lived off Venezuelan oil and money and had offered security in return, “BUT NOT ANYMORE!”

“THERE WILL BE NO MORE OIL OR MONEY GOING TO CUBA - ZERO!” Trump said in the post as he spent the weekend at his home in southern Florida. “I strongly suggest they make a deal, BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE.” He did not explain what kind of deal.

The Cuban government said 32 of its military personnel were killed during the American operation last weekend that captured Maduro. The personnel from Cuba’s two main security agencies were in Caracas, the Venezuelan capital, as part of an agreement between Cuba and Venezuela.

“Venezuela doesn’t need protection anymore from the thugs and extortionists who held them hostage for so many years,” Trump said Sunday. “Venezuela now has the United States of America, the most powerful military in the World (by far!), to protect them, and protect them we will.”

Trump also responded to another account’s social media post predicting that his secretary of state, Marco Rubio, will be president of Cuba: “Sounds good to me!” Trump said.

Trump and top administration officials have taken an increasingly aggressive tone toward Cuba, which had been kept economically afloat by Venezuela. Long before Maduro's capture, severe blackouts were sidelining life in Cuba, where people endured long lines at gas stations and supermarkets amid the island’s worst economic crisis in decades.

Trump has said previously that the Cuban economy, battered by years of a U.S. embargo, would slide further with the ouster of Maduro.

“It’s going down,” Trump said of Cuba. “It’s going down for the count.”

A person watches the oil tanker Ocean Mariner, Monrovia, arrive to the bay in Havana, Cuba, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)

President Donald Trump attends a meeting with oil executives in the East Room of the White House, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)