Easton continues to make impressive strides with their sticks as they look to make light weight, yet durable models to satisfy the needs of players of every caliber, and the Easton Stealth RS appears to be no exception.
Appearance and Design: Plainly put – this stick is sexy. Perhaps no Stealth model to this point has so successfully implemented such a “stealth” look.
Like most one-piece sticks now, the Stealth RS features a tapered shaft. And like sticks in the Stealth line, the RS includes the elliptical TORX shaft on the taper to help improve durability at the lower end of the stick where it’s most susceptible to breakage from serious slashes. The RS also presents newer materials throughout to help maintain durability while decreasing the overall weight of the stick.
The RS also has a dual finish. Most of the shaft is the normal glossy finish, but the gloss fades into a matte finish on the lower-third of the stick and even onto the blade.
Balance: The RS has real solid balance with very even weight distribution throughout the entire shaft. In fact, the weight distribution is so good that after using the RS I picked up another stick that I took with me to the rink and could feel a noticeable difference in that stick’s balance compared to the RS. Plus, the balance and even weight distribution help give the RS a more “solid” feel where the shaft doesn’t feel like paper mache that could break on the first hard slash.
Feel: The light weight and even weight distribution allows for a pretty good feel for the puck on the blade. Honestly, I didn’t feel like stick handling ability was the best thing about this stick and I’ve played with other sticks that I think offered a better feel for the puck during stick handling and passing – especially some sticks that are a little more blade-light and seem to send more vibrations up through the shaft when the puck impacts the shaft.
One real positive was how the blade absorbed the energy while receiving passes. I was very impressed with the RS’s ability to take a hard pass. We all know how to cradle a pass, but for testing’s sake I allowed a few hard passes to smack into a firmly held blade and the stick absorbed the pass very well without the puck bouncing all over the place. It was a pleasant surprise.
A lot of people have already described this stick as having a lot of “pop.” This is a pretty apt description. The puck seems to release from the stick quicker and faster shots can be achieved with seemingly less effort. I was really impressed with the stick’s performance on wrist shots. Again, pucks seemed to release quickly from the blade with more energy. |
