Jones more than keeping up
Ben Jones has quietly and efficiently put together the best season of his Ontario Hockey League career.
The 20-year-old Waterloo native, who is known as one of the top two-way forwards in the league, has picked up his offensive game this season and leads the Niagara IceDogs in scoring with 90 points in 59 games.
“It’s not what I focus on, it’s more defensively what I try to focus on the most,” Jone said. “It’s knowing that offensive numbers come from playing well defensively. I’ve learned that throughout my career and try not to focus on numbers too much.
“I’m definitely happy with the point production I’ve had this year, but I always try and focus on defence and doing all of the other things right.”
Considering the IceDogs are loaded up front with snipers such as Kirill Maksimov, Jason Robertson and Akil Thomas, Jones’ output is even more impressive.
“We have some real good goal scorers on our team who can put the puck in the net. I’ll leave that for them and just try and focus on doing the other things right,” Jones added.
Jones’ offence hasn’t come at the expense of his work at the other end of the rink — he’s among the team leaders with a plus-33 rating.
“It’s nice when the stats pay off like that, but you can’t get too focused on that. I’m happy to be able to contribute in every situation. I’m happy to get goals but for me, most importantly, it’s playing well defensively for this team.”
Jones was named team captain before the season and has taken pride in wearing the C.
“It was obviously an honour to be named captain of this group. It’s such a great group,” he said. “There’s not much leading that needs to be done with the amount of draft picks we have. We have so much experience in this league and so many players who have been in NHL camps as well.
“I think I just try to be as good a leader as I can for everyone on and off the ice and try and bring back my experiences I’ve learned from Vegas camps and try and help out the younger guys.”
Jones was selected by the Golden Knights in the seventh round of the 2017 National Hockey League draft and has attended a pair of NHL camps with the team.
“It’s awesome to be able to have that extra bit of information,” he said. “We keep in contact quite a bit, whether it’s the strength guy or the skills coach. The development guy comes down once a month and we see each other quite a bit. It’s nice to know there’s a place (to play) after this.”
Jones arrived in Niagara after being selected in the first round (seventh overall) of the 2015 OHL draft.
He went through the normal growing pains of all young players but each season improved and increased his points total.
“It definitely has gone by in the blink of an eye,” he said. “I just played in my 250th OHL game the other day and I can still picture what happened in my first OHL game and the nerves that were flowing at that moment.
“It has just flown by. It’s a little bit of mixed emotions going into the end of this year but we have such a great group we’re going to have a long playoff run.”
The IceDogs are in North Bay Friday, Barrie Saturday and home to Sarnia Sunday afternoon at 2 p.m.
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