A fascinating storyline emerging in Ottawa through the early going of the season is the chemistry that Stephen Halliday is building with Tim St\u00fctzle.<\/p>\n
Halliday would have had his third goal of the season on Thursday night had it not been called back for an offside zone entry. If it counted, it would have been the second Halliday goal this week with a primary assist from St\u00fctzle.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s going to be one of the best players in the league,\u201d said St\u00fctzle after taking morning skate with Halliday on his left wing on Thursday.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m really impressed by his game, but he\u2019s got to stay confident. Obviously, it\u2019s not always easy when you\u2019re a younger guy, and you don\u2019t play as many minutes. But he\u2019s got to stay confident and keep playing his game.\u201d<\/p>\n
Back up a second \u2014 did St\u00fctzle just say that Halliday would one day be one of the best players in the league? Indeed, he did. Lofty praise from the superstar.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Halliday could have been drafted alongside St\u00fctzle in the 2020 NHL Entry Draft but was passed over twice before eventually being selected 104th overall by the Senators in 2022.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Through 38 career NHL games, he\u2019s scored six times and collected eight assists, but St\u00fctzle can clearly see that pace increasing \u2014 and if Halliday spends more time on his wing, like he did on Thursday night, then it\u2019s not so hard to picture.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think he\u2019s so skilled. He\u2019s such a smart player. I think that as soon as he is winning all his puck battles \u2014 because he\u2019s so big, nobody should be able to take the puck from him \u2014 he\u2019s going to be one of the best players in the league,\u201d said St\u00fctzle.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s got to get competitive. I think that\u2019s the most important part, is wanting to win that badly, that he has to do everything in his power to help us win, and I think he\u2019s getting better every day, so it\u2019s been awesome to see.\u201d<\/p>\n
Halliday didn\u2019t have a quick progression to becoming a full-time NHL player like St\u00fctzle, who was promoted to Ottawa\u2019s top six within the first few weeks of his rookie season in 2021. However, St\u00fctzle began his NHL career as a winger, unlike Halliday.<\/p>\n
While Halliday had previously been playing centre in the bottom six before his move to the first line, one way to get to the top six is to play wing, like St\u00fctzle did at the beginning of his career.<\/p>\n
\u201cI actually started my career as a winger in minor hockey and then the first couple years in the USHL, and then I just played centre just because I\u2019m more of a natural puck mover, and one of my coaches in the USHL put me at centre,\u201d said Halliday, who said he worked on some specific winger attributes this summer in preparation for a potential move to the wing.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think just trying to give coach more options, whether I can play a wing, centre, right wing, any forward position. It kind of gives me 12 spots, versus four. So I think that’s kind of a good mentality for me.\u201d<\/p>\n
And of course, Halliday would welcome the opportunity to continue playing with St\u00fctzle and Drake Batherson on the first line.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think there\u2019s a combination of not trying to complicate it, but also trying to make plays,\u201d said Halliday.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think those two guys are obviously unbelievable players, so just trying to you know, get them the puck in space and kind of just try to play my game and make some plays.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A fascinating storyline emerging in Ottawa through the early going of the season is the chemistry that Stephen…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":935593,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":["post-935592","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/935592","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=935592"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/935592\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/935593"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=935592"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=935592"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=935592"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}