At times, Jean looks like a dominant possession forward who uses his frame and quick hands to with-stand pressure on zone entries and extend possessions inside the offensive zone. His size and skill al-low him to effectively penetrate the middle of the ice as a puck handler, displaying a good deal of finesse for a skater of his size to slip his way past defenders and funnel plays towards the net front. A smart distributor of the puck as well, I thought he was able to connect seamlessly on passing plays in transition and showed a keen ability to execute passes below the hashmarks where time and space were limited. The flashes of skill that I saw from the QMJHL draft-eligible skater make him an interesting forward to continue to monitor as the season rolls along.

I found that Jean brought a sense of urgency to this Pittsburgh offence, connecting on passing plays inside the offensive zone with great pace and timing to generate scoring chances from around the blue paint. He was able to flash his smooth set of hands and decent puck protection skills at times but I felt that what made him such an effective cog during offensive sequences was his understanding of when to rid himself of the puck, dish it off to the closest teammate and then get into position to support the new puck carrier. He had a great chance in this game where a broken play ended up on his stick to spring him all alone with the goaltender, where I thought he made a good move to his forehand, but unfortunately couldn’t convert on the shot.

Ethan Jean was consistently impressive for the Pens Elite in this one, bringing a good degree of scoring chances along with playmaking, giving him some dual-threat capability. Early in the game he attacked some defenders with great speed, going right into the bees nest, he wiggled his way between the crowd and managed to slip a perfect spinning pass over to a teammate through the traffic for a great scoring look. His crafty playmaking ability would continue as he pulled off some deceptive delays and fakes, particularly working high in the offensive zone, taking the extra half-second to make the defender make the first move and reacting accordingly with some powerful footwork and some quick hands. His work protecting the puck by keeping his feet moving was a nice use of his skating ability, having a few instances of some good puck protection as he was twisting and turning away from pressure.