Every team wants a Brady Stonehouse on the team. A player that is very skilled, fast, with great hockey IQ that is a major league pest on the ice and very annoying to play against. Every hockey player wants a linemate like this. But, players like these are found very rarely in major junior and in the NHL. The good news for the Edmonton Oilers may be that they have found this rare player in Brady Stonehouse.
Stonehouse’s production this week
Stonehouse finished the last game with two goals and a plus one rating for the Ottawa 67s. He had a great game offensively against the Sarnia Sting. This kind of improvement and consistency in scoring and pestiness has continued on for Stonehouse and that has a lot of Oiler scouts giddy in their seats.
Stonehouse started off the season very slow as he had not registered a point in his first five games and I won’t lie, that made me nervous in his consistency. But after that, he has taken off. He has rattled off seven goals and six assists in 11 games. He has also shot the puck a lot as he has over 60 shots on goals already. He’s always looking to shoot instead of just pass, which is great. But his high hockey IQ also guides him to make the right play at the right time. He’s been plus 8 so far and, very surprisingly, six penalty minutes only. Yes some fans may find this odd. They may start asking “wait you said Brady is a pest! Where are his penalty minutes?”
The answer to this is that Stonehouse is now learning when to be a pest and when to be a scorer. He’s starting to become a smarter pest on the ice now. He is also not just agonizing through his hitting. He is very mouthy to the opposition when the need arises. This is something that is very pleasing to see as there is a time and place to be annoying to the opposition and scoring goals.
I will be very surprised if Stonehouse slows down and very shocked, annoyed and angry if he is not given a camp invite to the World Junior Championship for Team Canada.
