NHL draft prospect Travis Konecny shows tenacity during Ottawa 67's win

Travis Konecny took a licking and kept on tickling the twine during an Ottawa 67's win on Friday, which is a reminder he's a cut above the typical talented teen.

Any skilled NHL draft prospect with listed dimensions such as Konecny's 5-foot-10 and 171 pounds is going to face doubts about staying healthy. It's just one data point among umpteen thousand, but the 17-year-old aced a classic gumption tests. At the end of a  full-speed solo rush early in the third period, Konecny was thrown into the end boards by Owen Sound veteran Daniel Milne. He very slowly skated back to the bench as the 67's played a man short. Ottawa coach Jeff Brown, though, didn't even need to check on his young captain, who went right back in after taking a physical inventory. Two shifts later, Konecny scored the game-winner with a 35-foot wrist shot that beat Attack goalie Jack Flinn high glove side. All part of paying the price to produce.

"It knocked the wind out of me," Konecny said after Ottawa's 4-2 win. "I got back to the bench and Mario [Dupuis, the 67's athletic therapist] was trying to talk to me and I like, 'give me a minute, I can't get a word out.' It's obviously going to hurt going in like that at full speed. After you get going [again] you forget about it throughout the game.

"The guys kept me up on the bench after the play and helped me forget the pain."

The decider kept Konency at a point-per-game pace, with 19 goals and 41 points across 41 games in Ottawa. That's come despite scoring just twice in the season's first 16 games, a stretch that was marked by being caught by a blindside check from Plymouth's Gianluca Curcuruto in early October. Konency was also adapting to Brown's system, playing right wing, being the youngest captain in the league and drawing a higher quality of competition.

On Friday, Brown didn't have to worry that Konecny would be fine after getting crunched by Milne.

"Mario Dupuis and Travis have a pretty good relationship," said Brown, whose 67's are fourth in OHL's Eastern Conference with .537 point percentage. "He's not going to sneak anything past Mayo. I kind of left those guys alone. He kind of looked at me, gave me the nod, which to me just meant 'good to go.'

"He's pretty durable,"

The game-winner was also Konecny's fifth, second-most in the OHL. Being able to score off the rush on a wrist shot from 30 feet out is also no mean feat for a 17-year-old.

"I'm working on it practice," Konecny said. "Sometimes they just go in for you.

"The team just makes it easier," the Clachan, Ont., native said of leading the 67's in game-winners. "I'm going to put all the credit to my team for that." 

Neate Sager is a writer for Yahoo! Canada Sports. Follow him on Twitter @neatebuzzthenet.