South Carolina Stingrays defenseman Joey Leach isn’t going to overwhelm anyone with his statistics.

The former Calgary Flames draft pick doesn’t get a chance to be on the Stingrays’ power play every night and as a result, doesn’t show up on the scoresheet very often. Leach isn’t flashy and he’s not a fighter, although this season he did record a career high with 122 penalty minutes. Instead, he is that steady, stay-at-home defenseman that every hockey team needs on its blue line in order to win a championship.

It’s Leach’s unselfish, team-first attitude that has made the Wadena, Saskatchewan, native arguably the most valuable player for the Stingrays this season.

“Joey has been a rock back on our blue line and he’s been our most consistent defenseman all year long,” said Stingrays coach Spencer Carbery. “He defends hard, he moves the puck out of the offensive zone, and he keeps the puck out of the back of our net. He knows what kind of player he is, he knows his identity as a professional player and he plays like that every night. That’s what makes him so valuable.”

At 6-4 and 205-pounds, Leach has established himself as one of the ECHL’s top shutdown defenseman. His reach, his ability to skate and his tenacity have made him nearly impossible to score on when he’s on the ice.

“I like to play a physical, defensive style and I hate when we give up a goal when I’m on the ice,” Leach said. “It’s something I take pride in. I like to take care of my own end first and then go from there. I like playing that shutdown role for the team.”

Leach was the ECHL’s top plus-minus performer for the season with a rating of plus-40. A year ago, he finished among the ECHL leaders with a plus-37 rating with the Fort Wayne Komets.

“Some people say that the plus-minus stat is a useless statistic and there are times when I agree,” Carbery said. “You can be lucky and have a good plus-minus and be unlucky and have a bad plus-minus. But when you consistently finish among the top in plus-minus guys in the league, then it’s a pattern. There’s a reason for that. Joey’s plus-minus tells you a lot about the player. He makes good passes out of the offensive zone that lead to goals and then he hates to get scored on.”

Leach is a defense-first kind of player, but he has a career-high six goals this season and has earned a reputation as the master of the empty-net goal among his teammates. Four of Leach’s six goals have come via the empty net. Leach had an empty-net goal in the Stingrays’ 5-1 victory in Game 5 of their playoff series against Kalamazoo.

“Yeah, no doubt I’ve gotten lucky a few times,” Leach said with a chuckle.

Carbery said he doesn’t expect to see Leach in the ECHL much longer. Leach has 23 games of experience at the American Hockey League level, including six games with the Hershey Bears, the Stingrays’ AHL affiliate.

“It takes some guys four or five years to understand their role or their identity at the pro level,” Carbery said. “Joey knows his and should be an everyday player in the AHL. Fortunately for Hershey they didn’t have a lot of injuries on their blue line this year. That’s the only reason Joey is still in this league.”