Mr. Consistency: Steven Stamkos is the new Brett Hull April 10, 2013

In the last few years, the NHL landscape has been a bit all over the place. 8 th place teams winning the cup, long-term injuries to a variety of star players, teams flip flopping from bottom feeders to contenders. Indeed, there has been very little you can count on. Except, that is, for Steven Stamkos. If you can count on one thing, it is that the sniper will do his thing, year in, year out.  

Since the 09-10 season, when he won his first of two Maurice “Rocket” Richard trophies, Stamkos has scored 182 goals (including 26 this year). In that time he has not missed a game, finding a way to avoid injury despite being a marked man on the ice.  

In short, Stamkos is a model for consistency, much in the same way Brett Hull was in his illustrious career, which saw the prolific sniper score an incredible 741 goals. In his 17-year career, Hull rarely hit the disabled list, missing more than 20 just once in a season.  

Like Hull, Stamkos has that incredible knack for carving out his own key spots on the ice to score goals, all the while avoiding crunching hits from opposing players.  In an NHL where more and more goals are of the gritty variety, true marksmen like Stamkos are a bit of dying breed. Which makes his goal scoring prowess all the more impressive.  

After 39 games, Stamkos is currently tied for the lead in goals with Alexander Ovechkin. He has played in every game again, his 4th season in a row without missing any time due to injury. His team may have struggled this year, but you cannot put too much blame on Stamkos, whose 50 points puts him just behind current leader Sidney Crosby. Just another all-star caliber season for the 23-year-old superstar.  

Will he end up scoring as many goals as Brett Hull? It is still too early to tell. As we have seen lately, bad injuries can happen to the best of the best. Still, if his current resume is any indication, this sniper has as good a chance as anyone to catch the Golden Brett.