Detroit Red Wings center Pavel Datsyuk has scored five goals in the past six games, helping his team clinch a playoff spot for the 16th consecutive season. And he may have a new stick with seven holes in the shaft to thank for it.

The holes in the stick are meant to reduce wind resistance by more than 20 percent while improving accuracy and durability.

Datsyuk, who is in his fifth NHL season, has averaged 16.5 points per month since he started using Reebok’s new O-Stick in mid-December. In the two months prior, the Russian had tallied less than 20 points in about two months.

Datsyuk said it has improved his game, enticed him to put more shots – and more powerful ones – on goal, and allowed him to block shots without breaking his stick during the middle of a shift.

Datsyuk was the first to adopt the stick, but others are slowly following suit, including Ottawa Senators winger Chris Neil and Vancouver Canucks center Bryan Smolinski.

And more converts are likely during the playoffs and after the stick’s retail launch in May.

For now, Datsyuk isn’t the only player benefiting from using the stick.

One game after clinching a playoff berth, Colby Armstrong’s backhander helped the Pittsburgh Penguins reach 100 points with a 4-2 win over the Boston Bruins on Thursday.

“For me it’s just a comfort thing,” said Armstrong, who had 19 points in the nearly five months before using the new stick and has tallied 11 in the last month and a half.

When it comes to sticks, players can already choose from traditional wood, aluminum, fiberglass, carbon fiber and other composite materials. Wood sticks still sell for as little as about $20, while the newest sticks can cost more than $200.

Sticks also have gotten lighter and lighter, most now weighing less than a pound.

“The story around the evolution of sticks definitely is a story of materials and in particular composite materials,” said Ken Covo, director of research and development for Nike Bauer Hockey. “(It) has really allowed us to do different, very cool things with hockey sticks.”

The new O-Stick borrows technology used in some tennis rackets, said Yan Martin, the director of marketing for Reebok-CCM Hockey. And, he said, the ‘less is more’ approach may be the next step in a game where timing is everything.

“The last thing we wanted to do was have something that’s just gimmicky,” Martin said. “And obviously when you have holes in a stick it can easily be perceived as something gimmicky because it has never been done in the past.”

Long before the innovations, wood sticks were used by Hall of Famers Bobby Hull, Gordie Howe, and Bobby Orr. Hull reportedly recorded a slap shot faster than 118 mph.

And after Al MacInnis used an all-wood Sher-Wood stick to hit a 99 mph shot during the 2002-03 All-Star festivities, he said: “So much for technology, eh?”

There are still several current NHL players that continue to use wooden sticks, including Bobby Holik of the Atlanta Thrashers and Ottawa Senators center Jason Spezza.

The 23-year-old Spezza said that while he’s tried composite sticks, they just don’t have the same feel of the wood sticks he grew up using.

The first hockey sticks were whittled from Canadian tree trunks in the 1800s. In December 2006, a stick believed to have been carved between 1852 and 1856 was sold at auction for $2.2 million and put on display at the Hockey Hall of Fame.

In 1976, the fiberglass blade was introduced on the hockey stick. Five years later, the NHL approved the use of aluminum shafts. And in 1994, composite sticks made their first appearance.

“It really changed the game,” said Ned Goldsmith, the vice president of Easton Hockey. “You see players now – all over the ice – getting these very quick passes and very quick shots off without having to make a big motion with their body. And that time is everything in a sport that moves so quickly.”