from Sam Page of Sports Illustrated,
There's no mystery what Johnson's flaws are. He's a great athlete who lacked polish as a prospect. He often found himself out of position, standing still on key plays. He made bad first passes. All I want to advance in this column is a unifying theory for why his many faults persist and why no amount of NHL experience or athleticism will ever erase them: Jack Johnson has no spatial contextual awareness.
Hockey is a game that happens at a high speeds, with multiple people, all with unique traits, moving in different directions. The ability to recognize who is where, what they can do, and where they will be, is the fundamental skill of the modern game. This was the great innovation of Wayne Gretzky, the hallmark of the legendary Red Army teams, the thing that separates Sidney Crosby from a handful of equally-skilled, physically more impressive peers.
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