Goal is such a misunderstood position and really hard to play and enjoy I believe. I've played goal for around 20 years now and I love it but when the puck isn't in your end it can be pretty fucking boring. I was never amazing but my brother 'was' and sounds a lot like your friend. I quote was because his stats would say at a young age he showed promise, and he was good at least, but he also played on teams where the average shots against per game was 1. This was a team that played in aaa tournaments, up a year and would finish second at worst. My point being, goalies stats are easily inflated by a good team that plays a good defensive system. Not saying your friend wasn't good or my brother wasn't but it's hard to tell for the goal position at a young age imo. I remember my dad telling me about a kid my age who had like a perfect 0.00 gaa when I was ~9-10, and saying I needed to be that good and this kid would make the NHL. Don't think I've ever heard about the kid since. I mean to take a kid so young and say in 8-9 years time they'll still be good/amazing is so tough just because of how inflated stats can be for a goalie at that age.

I think the other problem is also illustrated by your friend and my brother in that, a lot of kids het bored with goal before they turn 18. Especially if they start at a young age. Like, if you're a good goalie, on q good team you're getting at best 20 shots a night, which just gets boring after a while because you get into a rythm of play coming down on you, track the play and puck, shot gets taken, stop puck, freeze or deflect into the corner, your (good) team retrieves puck and goes back up the ice and then you're standing there bores for another 3~ minutes. So it gets boring for a young kid to just stand there and the coolness of the pads and glove and blocker wears off and then you wonder why goal instead of a position that's always in the play like forward or d... Like I said, my brother played on a team who averaged 1 shot against per game and I know that he got bored of goal after a couple seasons of that so he asked the coach I'd he could play out and the coach agreed as long as he'd play goal every other game but then the coach dickes my brother over and just made him play every game by not picking a back up goalie up. And then my brother dealt with the politics at age 13-14 and that was it, he lost interest. I mean, he was definitely a good goalie and still is. He's 6'3, in good shape. Played in tournaments with ex nhlers and won MVP of the tournament. Like he's a good goalie but he just lost interest because of how fucked over the goalie position gets. And the you add in inflation of stats for goalies at young ages to the goalies who lose interest and imo its really tough to say who will and won't make it at the goal position at such a young age.