By JOE LAPOINTE
NEWARK, N.J. – When defenseman Seth Jones attended Pioneer high school and practiced in Ann Arbor for the USA Hockey National Team Development Program, he’d spend an occasional night in Detroit’s Joe Louis Arena to watch and learn from Nicklas Lidstrom of the Red Wings, a master of the craft.
“He definitely is my role model,” Jones said. “A lot of young kids were fortunate enough to grow up and see him play and how he thought his way through the game. I try to translate that into my game as much as possible. He was a great player and a great captain. The Red Wings were my favorite team, mostly because of him.”
But Jones wasn’t chosen by the Red Wings Sunday in the entry draft for 18-year-olds at Prudential Center. Nor was he drafted by the Colorado Avalanche, who had the first pick.
That would have been a sentimental choice with a strong story line because the Avs inspired Jones to become a hockey player when he watched them clinch the Stanley Cup in 2001. He sat that night in a front-row seat in Denver, arranged by his father, who played basketball for the Nuggets.
Despite Jones’s ranking as best overall player in several pre-draft polls, Colorado, Florida and Tampa Bay used the first three picks to choose forwards. When Nashville chose fourth, the Predators took Jones, the first defenseman in this year’s draft and the highest-selected African-American in N.H.L. history.
Was Jones disappointed to go so relatively low?
Showing His Skills
“Not really,” Jones said. “But I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t thinking of going to those (first three) teams. You definitely want to prove them wrong. You definitely want to show them why they should’ve picked you.”
When someone asked Jones if he would begin his career with a chip on his shoulder because of the snub, Jones replied: “For sure. I’m going to try to make – in a good way – those teams regret not taking me. That’s not my only goal for next year. But it’s definitely on my list.”
The Wings could not pick Jones because they chose 20th. overall and took Anthony Mantha, a right wing from Val-D’Or in the Qubec League. The Avalanche chose Halifax center Nathan MacKinnon of the Quebec League with the first pick; the Panthers took center Aleksander Barkov of Finland with the second pick; Steve Yzerman’s Lighting took MacKinnon’s Halifax teammate, left wing Jonathan Drouin, with the third pick.
Jones, bi-racial, is the son of Popeye Jones, a black former college and professional basketball player who spent last season as the assistant coach of the Brooklyn Nets. Jones’s mother is white.
Darnell Nurse, a black Canadian defenseman from Sault Ste. Marie in the Ontario League, was taken seventh overall by the Edmonton Oilers. Nurse and Jones are friends and Nurse said “I felt pretty bad for” Jones as the first three teams failed to call his name. “He had all those cameras in his face,” Nurse said.
Until now, the highest-drafted African-American was Kyle Okposo of the New York Islanders, chosen seventh overall in 2006. Evander Kane of the Winnipeg Jets, taken fourth overall by Atlanta in 2009, is Canadian and now tied with Jones as the black player chosen highest ever.
Last season in the N.H.L. there were 22 black players of all nationalities, four of them African-American. A black Canadian, P.K. Subban of Montreal, won the Norris Trophy for best defenseman, an N.H.L. first.
In most sports drafts, especially in the first round, it is customary and polite for the general manager of that team to say the player chosen by his team was the one he really wanted and he was pleasantly surprised to find him still available when it came time to choose.
"110 Percent"
But consider the words of David Poile, the Nashville general manager, reported the day before the draft in the Tennessean newspaper of Nashville when asked whether he would take Jones if he could.
“Absolutely, 100 per cent, 110 per cent,” Poile said before the draft. “I think he’s the best player in the draft. He’s the whole package. He has size. He has great skating. He can be a Norris Trophy winner.”
Jones is 6-foot-4 and a right-handed shot who excels on the power play. He helped the U.S. to the World Junior championship last winter in Russia. He played the rest of the season with the Portland Winterhawks of the Western League, coached by Travis Green.
“I like the comparison to Lidstrom,” Green said in a telephone interview. “And Seth sees the ice like a Chris Pronger. Seth controlled the game almost effortlessly. Defensively, we want him on opposite other team’s best lines. He’s very professional, very mature for his age.”
Green also said Jones has a mission to encourage other African-American kids to play hockey. “He’s obviously been brought up well,” Green said. “His folks have done a great job raising him.”
"Way to Go"
Even more effusive was Pierre McGuire, a former N.H.L. coach and television hockey analyst on both sides of the border.
“This is amazing, this is a heist,” McGuire said of Nashville getting Jones. “This is fantastic for the Nashville Predators. Way to go, David Poile.”
Jones told reporters he likes country music (his family lives in Texas now), so that might give him a comfort level in yet another new home town in his young life. In addition, his father grew up in Dresden, Tenn., which is less than a three-hour drive from Nashville.
Oh, and there is one more geographical coincidence about Michigan and the Jones family besides Seth’s two-year stint in Ann Arbor. It happened more than 23 years ago, when the top-seeded Michigan State Spartans basketball team faced No. 16 Murray State in the first game of the Southeast Regional of the N.C.A.A. tournament in Knoxville, Tenn.
The game went into overtime and the best Murray State player – the one who already had 37 points – missed a shot that would have tied it again in the last few second of overtime.
But after he missed his baseline hook, the Spartans rebounded and scored for a 75-71 victory. “I’m still trying to figure out if we won or lost,” the Spartans’ coach said. His name? Jud Heathecote. The Murray State star? Popeye Jones.
