Blue Jackets Flyers Hockey

Flyers goalie Steve Mason credits his strong puck-handling skills to playing forward in ball hockey every summer. (AP Photo/Matt Slocum)

VOORHEES — There are good reasons why Steve Mason of the Flyers has become one of hockey's best stick-handling goalies.

Practice, practice, practice.

He practices on the ice all season long and, get this, during summers as a high-scoring center running around rinks playing ball hockey in his hometown of Oakville, Ontario.

Ball hockey is played in rinks with no ice, and Mason has spent the last five summers playing with buddies for the Oakville Red Wings in the Players Ball Hockey League (PBHL).

Asked if he's any good, this 6-foot-4 netminder who stops pucks for a living started reeling off offensive stats that made him sound like he's the PBHL's version of Wayne Gretzky or Mario Lemieux.

"I don't want to pump my tires, but I'm pretty good at it," Mason said with a big grin.

Mason, who will be in goal for the Flyers for Thursday night's home game against the Islanders, bragged that he won the scoring title two summers in a row and that all of his impressive stats can be looked up on the PBHL website.

We looked them up.

They're impressive. In 45 career games, Mason has 69 goals and 127 points. That comes to 2.82 points per game, which ranks third in league history.

His stats are even slightly better than the league's other NHL player, who happens to be a forward. New York Islanders center Casey Cizikas has 88 points over 41 career games for a 2.15 points-per-game average that's more than a half-a-point below Mason.

"The quality of play out there isn't great and it's more fun than anything ... but there was a stretch there when I had five or six hat tricks in a row," Mason said. ""I'm more of a goal scorer than passer."

Mason enjoys scoring goals ... to the point that he's done some showboating celebrating them over the years.

"I used to when I was younger, then the ref started calling me for unsportsmanlike," he said. "It's all fun ... it's more of a joke than anything."

But playing forward for a few games of summer fun helps his goaltending, which has been excellent of late, as he's 5-0 with a 1.15 goals-average average in his last six games.

Mason has become perhaps a top three goalie in the NHL handling the puck, arguably behind only Mike Smith of the Arizona Coyotes and Carey Price of the Montreal Canadiens now that Devils great Martin Brodeur is retired.

"I'd recommend any kid who's thinking about being a goalie get a couple years under your belt playing forward just to develop those skills because they're such an important part of the game now," Mason said. "If you have a goalie that can play the puck, it saves time in your zone.

"That game we played against Arizona (on Jan. 27), Mike Smith played the puck more than I'd seen anybody. ... It just helps the defensemen out so much when you can do something like that."

Mason's stick skills have led to nine career assists, including two this season.

Before his career ends, he hopes to score a goal.

Counting playoffs, only 14 goals in NHL history have been scored by goalies. Half came on actual shots into empty nets, the other half on own goals by opponents in which the netminder was the last to touch the puck and thus awarded the goal.

Of the seven goalie shots for goals, Flyers GM Ron Hextall leads with two, one while he was playing a regular-season game for the 1987-88 Flyers and one during a Flyers 1989 playoff game.

Smith was the last to score in October 2013 when he just beat the final buzzer with a shot from his crease in a 5-2 Coyotes win over the Detroit Red Wings.

Mason scored a cheapie on an own goal when he played junior hockey, and he kept the puck. Someday he hopes to score an NHL goal with a shot ... if he ever gets the courage to try.

"I do it every now and then at the beginning of practice just fooling around, but come game time it's a little bit different," Mason said. "You don't want to be out of your net and throw a muffin up the middle and have them (intercept and) have an empty net. I think if you're going to try that, you've got to at least have a two-goal lead there in case that were to happen.

"All the guys give me crap when I do go out (in empty-net situations) and stop the puck. (Claude Giroux's) always the one yelling for me to shoot it. I think he wants it more than I do."

Mason wants it, too.

"That would be a nice to do one time," he said.

MORE ON STEVE MASON:

• Here's proof that Mason is the Cole Hamels of goaltenders

• Mason makes a special fan happy at Sixers game

• With Martin Brodeur watching, Mason jokes about pulling within 100 shutouts of all-time leader

• Mason returns from knee injury, flu to play hero in shootout win

Randy Miller may be reached at rmiller@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @RandyJMiller. Find NJ.com Philadelphia Sports on Facebook.