Juan Jaundice Rookie Profile [1/2]

[Jus 35]

Name: Juan Jaundice

Age: 18

Birthplace: Pottsville, PA

Height: 6’0”

Weight: 218 lbs.

Position: Goalie

Glove: Left

 

Juan has many natural gifts that will lend themselves well to his success as a goaltender in the league, but diligent practice is required to hone these talents. While he is slightly undersized compared to many other goalies, he intuitively uses that size well as he grows and shrinks in the crease. He displays an aptitude for rebound control and has relatively quik recovery times. His unorthodox path getting into the sport leaves many questions in the air and it is hard to gauge just where his ceiling his from 3 years in high school. His senior year with the Pottsville Maroons High School Hockey Club showed marked improvement over the previous two. It was evident he had done his homework between Grades 11 and 12, as his fundamentals were much more sound. He saved 284 out of 310 shots, yielding an impressive .916 SV%, compared to .766SV% his junior year.

 

Strengths

Puck Control: Juan exhibits excellent puck control, far better than expected given his level. When watching him play, the best word to describe it is "Sticky." Pucks seem to gravitate towards him like a black hole and he seldom lets them go. More akin to a baseball catcher than a goalie at times, Juan favors his glove far more frequently than the paddle. In fact, were it not for him diligently working on it now, the lack of stick work would be considered a massive weakness. He likes trapping and his coaches have had glowing reviews on many "miraculous" snags he's pulled off. He positions himself more aggressively than most, looking to grab the puck to set his team on the attack, or to snuff the play out quickly. Juan does seem to find genuine excitement in this, as he can be heard cackling after gloving a particularly hard shot.

Vision: Scanning the ice constantly, Juan has a good handle on keeping track of lanes and attackers. He seldom loses sight on the puck through traffic and seems to surprise even himself at his laser focus at times. This vision helps give him an acute sense of positioning and keeps him from getting burned too often on an overzealous play. Being young, a shiftier player will still give Juan fits, but that is something only time and on-ice experience can give him. If he refines this further in tandem with his puck control, I foresee many teams dreading when they see Juan in the opposing net.

 

Conditioning: Owing to his self-described "Blue-Collar" work ethic, Juan displays a surprising level of conditioning. He seems to start breathing heavy very quickly but he can maintain at that pace for the duration of the contest with little drop in performance. Endurance is the name of the game here and as long as his head is in the game, he will remain at an effective and consistent level throughout the match. Whether the shots are four or forty, Juan seems to stay at the same stamina level as when he started. I can see some late overtime heroics in his future if he can sharpen his other skills. It will be hard for most goalies at his level to outlast him, if he's allowed to play the game his way. Which leads us into his greatest weakness...
 

Weaknesses:
Composure: Juan, for all the raw talent, has a glaring weakness that I don't imagine will be rectified easily. He becomes very obsessive over how things "feel", whether physical or abstract. This is evident in a game during his junior year where we witnessed him spend more time shaking his left leg than actually paying attention to the game. When the period had ended, it turned out that Juan was being bothered by his left sock tucked slightly differently than his right. This is troublesome, as it cannot be drilled away, and if something does come up, his entire performance can become suspect. The biggest way to leverage this is potentially therapeutic solutions to treat his obsessions. Though these incidents are far and few between, they pose enough of a risk to hamper his growth as a professional player if he cannot get a handle on this. Along the lines of composure, if he feels he's been wronged or doled something unfairly, he has a flaring temper. Juan received more than his fair share of slashing penalties against defenders trying to crowd his net. This lack of discipline needs to be rectified ASAP.

 

Reflexes: Despite his proficiency with the glove, lax reflexes will shoot Juan in the foot more than anything. Often, whether it be do to composure or his mind floating elsewhere, Juan will let in extremely soft goals. A focus on improving reflexes outside of just the glove are highly encouraged, and it is my fear if they are not addressed that he will let them lag to the point of inability. He shows flashes of brilliance and can make cat like saves on the rare occasion, but he does not possesses the flexibility or muscle tension to make adequate desperation saves yet.  If composure is his biggest intangible flaw, reflexes would have to be the biggest flaw that can be addressed through training; specifically time in the weight room. Improving his balance, agility, and reaction time could easily propel him to higher performance levels.  

 

Intelligence/Stubbornness: I believe this is a tie between these two, as they closely relate to each other in this case. While he shows a gift for absorbing knowledge, applying it is a different story. Juan soaks up information like a sponge but it takes diligent and passionate coaching to squeeze it out onto the ice. He passionately defends a self described "Old School Way" and seeks to achieve that in all aspects of his game. He is a stickler for simple, energy efficient movement. This is evident in his preferred style of Stand Up goal tending. Often times it takes a near whack to the head to convince Juan to change up his game of tactics. This bull-headed nature could absolutely lead to his stagnation.

 

In Conclusion:

Juan is a fantastic young man who has a bright future in the league, provided he hauls his fair share of the work load. With the way things have been trending, in a few years a goalie with such a stubborn and old-school method of thinking may not have such an easy time getting and staying in the league. But that attitude may also endear fans to him. His persona is essentially a grinder in goalie gear. While very rough around the edges, I believe with enough effort his skillset will be completely rounded out. He shows some openness to butterfly goal tending techniques, so further encouraging that growth could prove beneficial at converting him into a Hybrid tender. Juan has the potential to be a very rare jack-of-all-trades goalie, and I feel many teams could tweak and utilize that to their advantage. As it stands though, a team has to decide if the investment is worth the potential risk. His natural talent is there, he could be a contender, but he needs to get his head into the right mindset. Given time and patience, it's my firm belief that there's a gem under the rough exterior. A veritable diamond of the coal region.


 

 

[K1NG LINUS 145]

That's my goalie! I think we've been seeing more and more of Jaun's miraculous glove saves recently. This was a fun read, and it had me chuckling at parts. I liked that you described him as a grinder in goalie gear. That certainly painted a very good picture in my mind, and I am never going to be able to get it out of my head now. It's going to be a fun season with Juan.