Draft-eligible Fowler named USHL goalie of the year
Jacob Fowler capped his incredible season with some hardware.
Fowler, a top goaltender for the 2023 NHL Draft, was named the United States Hockey League goaltender of the year for the 2022-23 season.
“What you get with Fowler is a goaltender who can be a workhorse and log a heavy amount of starts,” FCHockey goaltending scout Shaun Richardson said. “He has a great economy of movement and positional consistency that enables him to arrive at save locations early and square up to the shooter. In order to beat him you have try to disrupt his calm and deliberate approach but even when you’re forcing him into high-speed lateral adjustments, Fowler controls his crease depth so well that it shortens his post-to-post distance and helps him get across quickly.
“Fowler can’t always beat the puck across the zone but on those occasions he has a filthy glove hand that’s sneaky fast and lets him steal a save that he really has no right in making.”
The 18-year-old posted a 27-9-3-1 record with a 2.28 goals-against average and .921 save percentage. In all, he led the USHL in wins, goals-against average, and save percentage, and tied for the league-lead with five shutouts. Fowler, who finished fifth league-wide with 1,029 saves, was named USHL goaltender of the week six times in 2022-23.
He is the first Youngstown Phantoms stopper to be named USHL goalie of the year.
Fowler was unlisted in FCHockey’s Midterm ranking for the 2023 draft, and is slotted fifth among North American goalies by NHL Central Scouting.