Don’t look now but the Flames have a prospect putting up stupidly good offensive numbers. It’s a situation so rare in Flamesville that it merits attention, even at this early juncture.

Ryan Howse isn’t overly big and he was criticized as a one-dimensional player during his draft season. That’s probably why he slid all the way down to the 3rd round where the Flames took his 74th overall in 2009. It looks like it’s gamble that is paying off.

Last year, Howse had something of a break-out season, scoring 47 goals for a pretty poor Chiliwack team. This year he’s on pace to torch that total with a mind-boggling 14 goals in 9 games played.

Howse has scored in every Bruins game thus far save one, even book-ending the season-to-date with hat tricks. The latter feat was managed in under a minute against the Vancouver Giants.

Again, it’s really early and there’s no way Howse continues to put up his 112 goal pace, but it’s certainly encouraging to see a Flames kid knocking the ball out of the park offensively (rather than just being big and, you know, great in the dressing room and capable at both ends of the rink etc.)

Here’s our Prospect Profile of Howse from this past summer.