JOBST CONTINUES OVERCOMING ODDS BY OWNING HIS DEVELOPMENT
Mar 19, 2024
By Andrew Mossbrooks | @Mossbrooks48
Each day on the Rochester Americans schedule, be it practice or a gameday, includes a three-word phrase.
Own your development.
It’s a phrase used by head coach Seth Appert and his staff to instill internal work, belief, and expectations of players within themselves to hone their craft and improve. A shining example of this comes through Amerks forward Mason Jobst.
The fifth-year pro out of Ohio State University leads Rochester in scoring, entering the week with 18 goals and 42 points. Not just highs on the team, but highs for Jobst himself in what’s been 200-plus games of a circuitous career.
“It’s something I knew I always had inside of me, but because of opportunity in different places and injuries, it’s taken me a while to get to this point,” said Jobst. “I’m happy that I’ve come this far.”
The journey has spanned five years and four teams for Jobst since he first turned pro with Bridgeport in the 2019-20 season. Each player’s development ladder is a different size. For Jobst, he has had more rungs than others, but that doesn’t mean he can’t climb to the top of it.
“Do I wish I was a little younger than 30 when this happened? I do, but I think I believed in myself because I’m always trying to get better. Like every offseason I'm going in and regardless of what contract I'm on or trying to make it to the NHL or whatever, I'm just driven by the process.”
One benefit of age comes wisdom, or so they say. In the case of Jobst, he has looked at things through an objective lens. At 5-foot-7 and 185 pounds, Jobst has been labelled as the prototypical ‘undersized forward,’ but that’s nothing new to Speedway, Indiana, native.
“Size has always affected my success and I get it. If I’m a general manager and player A is 5’7” and player B is 6’2”, I’m taking player B nine out of 10 times. I wasn't highly touted going into college. If you were to rank my class going in, I would've been one of the lower ranked. I'm not dumb, and it has affected me throughout my career, but it's also motivated me. It drives me. It's just put a chip on my shoulder to continue to prove that you can play at this level regardless of size. I think that over time you realize that if you're going to be undersized, you have to be smarter.”
Genetics are what they are. Jobst can’t wake up in a different physical frame. Instead, his focus has been on other areas, including the intangibles of the game.
“The sport is so much compete when it comes to hockey sense and that's what I've always kind of tried to pride myself on. I think about how to get better in those areas and study the game. You look at me from the outside and maybe it’s hard to see the value of me on a piece of paper until you watch me for a whole year compete and win battles against guys twice my size.”
Jobst has been operating at a torrid pace since the calendar flipped to 2024. In 27 games since the turn of the New Year, the skilled forward has scored 11 goals and 16 assists, good for a point-per-game pace. Jobst will enter the Amerks’ three-game homestand on a five-game point streak (2+5) and has points in nine of his last 10 games.
The spike in production has been building since last season, a year Jobst refers to as his age-29 rookie campaign. Following Rochester’s run to the Eastern Conference Finals, Jobst went back to review the season that was. For the first time in his pro career, he appeared in more than 12 consecutive games without being scratched. He scored 14 goals on 98 shots, but just because the Amerks were in offseason mode didn’t mean he was.
“I took a pretty deep look at my game last year. I went and watched every shot and every shot attempt that I had last year. For the whole year, I watched every single one of them at the beginning of the summer. I needed to sit down and write down what areas I can work on this summer to get better. That’s what drives me. Identifying problems and learning how to solve them.”
Jobst would ask himself questions, identifying said problems in order to discover how to solve them.
“Where did I get my shots last year? How am I going to have more success? What are these shots looking like? I watched 60 games worth of that and then you see patterns. I'm like, ‘holy s***’. “Like, this is where I'm getting my shots. This type of shot I'm getting, then I'm getting into this area of the ice and I'm not getting it off. Something that I'm really proud of is I actually identified the bumper on the power-play, specifically the bumper that I was getting some looks that I wasn't scoring on. And I thought, okay, like, this is an area that at some point next year I may have a chance to get on the power-play.”
As someone who falls in love with the process, Jobst began simulating possibilities in his mind for the following season, identifying potential situations he would find himself in and how he could best serve the red, white, and blue.
“We have all lefties, so I need to go find the best players in the NHL that have a lefty on the left flank and have a lefty in the bumper and then I'll go watch every single one of their goals and shots from that area.”
“I found Bo Horvat and J.T. Miller on Vancouver two years ago when he had 32 goals. So, J.T. Miller is a lefty and I'm thinking, okay, we have all lefties and could be like (Lukas) Rousek on that side. It could be Beersy (Brandon Biro), he could be Rosie (Isak Rosen). I just know that if I get my chance here, that's where I need to take advantage of this opportunity to produce and help our team win.”
“His growth has been just immense,” said Appert. “What a credit to him. He’s 29 years old at the end of last year and that’s his first breakout year in the American League. It’s really easy at that point and that age to say ‘okay, I’ve got it figured out.’ That’s not in his DNA. His DNA is all about finding out how to get better. So, he attacked and studied the best bumpers in the NHL. That’s grown his game. He’s just really impressive. He’s an elite teammate, a great human, and continuing to establish himself as a great American League player. He doesn’t wear a letter, but he’s a leader for our team.”
Jobst’s work ethic could be described as relentless. He turned Miller and Horvat’s shifts and shots into a 20-plus minute montage of clips, comparing them to that of his own to mimic their movements.
“To me, it's all pattern recognition. But that's through looking at a whole season worth of shots. I can see that. Then I can see the patterns.”
Jobst identified the physical positioning and angling needed to score and produce at a higher clip on the power-play, but his physical improvements came with an additional dive into intangibles. Jobst wasn’t necessarily concerned about changing the way he would think the game, but rather, how quick he could think it.
“I actually have a guy that I found that does vision and brain training while he's up in Toronto. His name is Satoshi Takano. I've talked with him for a few years. His approach to it is way different. He's got all kinds of gadgets and lights and works on reaction timing. His whole thing is if your brain can process faster, everything else around you seems way slower. So, to (Connor) McDavid and (Nathan) MacKinnon, they're the fastest guys, but their brain is also processing way faster than everyone else, so everything looks slower around them. I spent a week with Satoshi in Toronto this summer to literally just work on vision training that's five times as fast as game speed. The theory is hopefully that if you train your eyes five times as fast as you see that once you get into a game, everything else slows down around you.”
Jobst puts his all into everything he does. He’s a student of the game, but away from that, he’s a student in other aspects of life. Jobst is trying to continue doing what he’s doing for as long as possible, but the 30-year-old has plans after hockey, too.
“I'm pretty passionate about real estate. Okay. All right. Very passionate. I actually ended up going to college for my degree in commercial development. I'm very entrepreneur minded. I have an internship this summer with a development company in Cincinnati with one of my best friends. I’m excited to kind of learn from him. I think I'm just passionate about learning and getting better at whatever it is that I'm doing.”
But before then, Jobst is doing what he loves most, and that’s playing hockey. His career has seen an upward trajectory since it started five years ago. He’s had to wait for opportunity, overcome injuries, and most importantly, own his development. With each passing day, it seems Jobst keeps improving. The ‘undersized forward’ has come up big time and time again, shattering ceilings and expectations throughout his career.
Now, there’s one more ceiling for Jobst to break through.
“I believe that I can play in the NHL. I do. Whether it's just like a depth role or a call-up for a handful of games. I believe that I'm good enough at this point and mature enough.”