Mbuyi’s best asset and his calling card are his one-timers. As a rookie last season, he led the entire OHL in power-play goals, scoring 19 from his favorite spot on the ice: the half-wall. As an opponent, when you see Mbuyi sitting in that spot with his stick loaded up over his head, you had better close on him immediately. Mbuyi scored many brute-force goals this year and did a great job opening space for himself, stalking open ice, and finding the right space for his teammates to get him the puck. He generates great velocity and accuracy from that position.
This isn’t just standing around in the same spot with his stick loaded, waiting to strike. Mbuyi manipulates opponents with his decision making. Most of the time, he does this via deferential passing. Mbuyi will pick his spot, load his stick up, and get ready to rip his lethal one-timer. Upon receiving the puck, if Mbuyi doesn’t have a lane, he just makes a touch-pass. The touch-pass inherently forces the defenseman to re-position himself to account for the puck movement. As the defenseman re-positions himself, so does Mbuyi. He re-loads his stick in a slightly different spot than the one he was just in, and when his teammate passes back to him, he has more time and space than he had on the initial retrieval.