Big Read: Seth Jones set for a breakout campaign

Seth Jones is poised to have a breakout campaign. If he does, Music City’s defence might be unstoppable.

By Ryan Dixon
Photography by Jason Myers

s a person who’d made a life in pro basketball, Popeye Jones had a close relationship with sports and wanted the same for his sons. Popeye—whose nickname came from a sibling when he was a baby; nobody ever calls him Ron—grew up in small-town Dresden, Tenn., playing football, baseball and basketball as the seasons changed. It was a bit of a surprise, then, when all three of his sons gravitated toward hockey, but he was happy to go with it. As much as Popeye was a believer in what sports could provide, he’d been around long enough to know youngsters could burn out, and there was a balance to be struck. That’s why, as his middle son, Seth, got more and more into hockey, Popeye was constantly asking him—almost to the point of comedy—“Are you still having fun?” Even though the answer was always yes, Popeye still took measures to ensure Seth didn’t sour on the game. “We always wanted to take the bag from him, like, ‘OK, that’s enough hockey,’” Popeye recalls. And they’d do it, maybe for a month or six weeks in the summer, when he and his then wife, Amy, really thought Seth should have a break. Seth may not have loved this forced separation, but his manner always ensured that doors were pretty safe from slamming. However, when Popeye and Amy decided he could be reunited with that bag, there was no mistaking his feelings. “He was just glowing,” Popeye says. “And that’s when I thought, ‘This is what he really loves to do.’”

Beyond the usual concerns, it’s easy to understand why Popeye kept a close eye on Seth’s relationship to the game. As the son of an 11-year NBA veteran, Jones’s journey was always going to attract a different kind of attention than those of other high-end hockey hopefuls. But the calm disposition that guides Jones through frenetic moments on the ice with the Nashville Predators has also helped him negotiate taxing times off it. That demeanour, mind you, covers a steely determination that could push Jones into another realm in his third NHL season. And if the youngster gains entry into the league’s exclusive club of elite defencemen, the welcoming committee will include a couple of very familiar faces. Shea Weber and Roman Josi, whom many would deem the premier blueline tandem in the league, have an enormous hand in Nashville’s fortunes. Representing three countries and contributing different styles of play, Jones, Weber and Josi are a formidable arrangement of complementary contrasts. Each has his own story, and with Jones’s just getting to the good part, the combined narrative in Nashville could soon be that of a defence corps for the ages.

Opening night for the Predators arrives at a decibel level worthy of Music City. The lights and speakers play a huge role in that, but not to be overlooked is the boisterous enthusiasm provided by the Bridgestone Arena faithful. Anyone who might have come wondering about a breakout year for Jones quickly has their hopes fanned by the two assists he registers in the opening 20 minutes. His most wow-worthy play in a 2–1 win over the Carolina Hurricanes doesn’t result in any points but manages to highlight exactly what makes Jones such a tantalizing talent. In the second period, he dashes up the middle of the ice with the puck, eluding a pair of Hurricanes before bearing down on the net. Only at the last second does a Hurricanes player manage to get the tip of his blade in the way, thwarting a rush that was all the more thrilling coming from somebody of Jones’s size. “He’s six-foot-four and he skates like he’s five-foot-eight,” says Weber. “He moves so well.”

Skating has always been a big part of Jones’s arsenal, dating back to when he and his brothers—Justin is four years his senior, Caleb three years younger and a fourth-round pick of the Edmonton Oilers in 2015—were introduced to the game while their dad was playing for the Denver Nuggets. From his very first foray onto the ice, with rental skates on his feet, Jones displayed uncanny ability and confidence. “I kept telling him, ‘You don’t know how to skate,’” Popeye recalls, “and he was like, ‘Yes I do.’”

When Justin started taking lessons from a figure-skating coach, the coach was happy to show Seth, about five years old at the time, some things, too. She figured the unofficial classes should be limited to about 15 minutes, since a child of that age doesn’t have the attention span for much more. Or, at least, most don’t. “Wow, he can last 20 minutes,” Popeye remembers the conversations going. “Wow, he can focus [for] 30 minutes.”

No Seth Jones origin story is complete without the tale of a chance encounter between Popeye and fellow Denver athlete Joe Sakic. Having spotted the Colorado Avalanche captain in the Pepsi Center’s gym one day, the six-foot-eight basketball player sidled up to him and asked if he had any tips for a guy who was a bit out of his element raising hockey players. “He looked at how big I was and he just said, ‘Make sure they know how to skate,’” says Popeye, now an assistant coach with the Indiana Pacers.

Jones—who was born in Arlington, Texas, while his father was playing for the Dallas Mavericks—could certainly do that and more by the time he arrived at the USA Hockey National Team Development Program in Ann Arbor, Mich. That ability to concentrate and absorb also meant the list of stuff he couldn’t do was rapidly getting shorter. “The few things he didn’t understand or needed to work on, you showed it to him once or talked about it once and he just didn’t do it wrong again,” says Danton Cole, the former NHLer who coached Jones as both an under-17 and under-18 player with the NTDP.

While the players born before Sept. 15, 1994, became eligible for the NHL draft in 2012, Jones’s Oct. 3 birthday meant he had to wait until the following year. He spent that extra season playing with the Western Hockey League’s Portland Winterhawks and, increasingly, answering questions about his unusual backstory. Much of it, no doubt, was genuine curiosity about how the son of an NBA power forward got into hockey—but that didn’t make dealing with his dad’s shadow any easier. When he reflects on that time now, leaning against the wall after the Predators’ final pre-season practice, Jones—just a couple of days removed from his 21st birthday—acknowledges that while he always went to great lengths to show that it didn’t bother him, sometimes the questions took a toll. “I don’t want to say ‘annoying,’ but it did start to get out of hand,” he says. “That’s just something I had to deal with. That’s my family and that’s something I can’t run from.”

Another thing Jones has had to reconcile: After at least a year’s worth of speculation that he might go first overall in the draft, his name wasn’t called until the Predators selected him at No. 4. While the Avalanche had made it pretty clear they had high-scoring Nathan MacKinnon pegged with the first pick, how the rest of it would shake out remained a mystery. Few expected Jones to be on the board when Nashville was picking, yet after Florida took big centre Aleksander Barkov at No. 2 and Tampa Bay opted for flashy winger Jonathan Drouin at No. 3, there he was. If Jones falling into their lap was good fortune for the Predators—and, ultimately, great for him—it was still impossible for the 18-year-old not to be a bit rankled after watching players many had ranked beneath him get their moment in the sun first. “It’s definitely not, like, payback or anything,” he says. “But you store it in the memory bank and it definitely makes me work harder.”

Becoming a Predator turned out to be an ideal situation for Jones, not only because it allowed him to apprentice under Weber and Josi, but because of Nashville’s status as a respected organization. That said, the summer they drafted Jones was a transitional time for the Preds, who missed the playoffs in both the lockout-shortened 2013 campaign and the following season, Jones’s rookie year. Much of that was due to star goalie Pekka Rinne’s battle with hip injuries, but the team was also trying to recuperate after a tumultuous few months in 2012 that saw the dismantling of its original dynamic defence duo. That off-season, Ryan Suter signed with the Minnesota Wild as an unrestricted free agent, while Weber, a restricted free agent, signed a 14-year, $110-million offer sheet from the Philadelphia Flyers. While Nashville couldn’t do anything about Suter bolting, it wasn’t about to live out the lyrics of a sad country song by watching Weber leave town, too. Being forced into matching that enormous contract wasn’t the ideal scenario for a budget-conscious team, but it beat the alternative. “That was a tough summer,” says GM David Poile. “Our hopes were to sign Suter and Shea. Obviously, the way it came down wasn’t great, but at the end of the day, there was no other way we were ever going to go.”

The stress of that time would have been lessened had the Preds known they already had Suter’s replacement in their midst. Nashville—particularly head amateur scout Jeff Kealty—identified Josi early in his draft season of 2007–08 and made it a priority to land him with the 38th overall pick. “I don’t know how many teams had him in the second round, but I would guess a fair amount didn’t,” says Poile.

As good as Nashville thought the Swiss D-man was, it’s hard to imagine they saw this coming. Two years ago, Josi took a nice step forward in his development, registering 13 goals and 40 points in 72 games. Last season, he went to another level, recording 15 goals and 55 points, more than all but five guys who play his position in the NHL. One scout calls the six-foot-one Josi a “50-50” defenceman, meaning he’s the rare breed who’s just as capable in the defensive zone as he is on the attack, mostly due to how nimble and smart he is. “That guy, to me, is the single most underrated player in the NHL,” says the scout. “He’s a star.”

To the Preds’ credit, they’ve got the 25-year-old—who’s not even the best-known person in his apartment complex in the Midtown neighbourhood, an honour that belongs to Taylor Swift—locked up through 2019–20 at the much-less-than-star cap hit of $4 million per season, relieving some of the burden of Weber’s monster deal. The latter’s elite status was established years ago, though he somewhat mystifyingly still doesn’t have the Norris Trophy to show for it. (He finished fourth in Norris voting last year, one spot ahead of Josi, and has twice been runner-up.) In the past seven seasons, the only blueliner with more points than Weber’s 322 is Chicago’s Duncan Keith with 331. But offence is only part of the equation for Weber, who, along with Rinne, is a face of the franchise. The Preds captain will never be called loquacious, but his granite jaw looks more menacing closed anyway. Whether in a game or practice, it’s still Weber’s stare that sets the tone for the whole team. “When he puts those skates on, it’s go time,” says Nashville assistant captain Mike Fisher. “It doesn’t matter when it is.”

That logic also applies to when Weber and Josi get sent over the boards. In the past two seasons, they’ve averaged more time on ice per game than everyone in the league except Suter, the Kings’ Drew Doughty and Ottawa’s Erik Karlsson. There was some pre-season talk in Nashville about lightening the top pair’s load, and increased responsibility for Jones would definitely help the plan. After easing him in during his first two years, there’s certainly a sense from the team and from Jones himself that he’s ready to go beyond the 27 points he posted in 82 games last year, when his night-to-night showings started to smooth out as a sophomore. His size and reach represent obvious advantages, and as Edmonton Oilers coach Todd McLellan points out, the youngster can cover a lot of ground with his mobility while still being agile enough to defend in small spaces. “He’s now an experienced defenceman who understands how the team wants to play,” McLellan says. “He’s comfortable now; he gets it. He’s grown up, and it shows.”

The same sentiment was expressed by Justin Faulk, who played alongside Jones on Team USA at the 2015 World Championship last spring. Faulk, a Carolina Hurricane who established himself as one of the best up-and-coming blueliners in the league last season, believes Jones’s ascent could be imminent. “If he turns into something this year, I wouldn’t be surprised at all,” he says.

Jones already made one leap even before he hit the ice this October, getting his own apartment after spending the past two seasons living with his mom. While Popeye is the guardian people recognize, Jones—whose parents split about five years ago—says Amy played a major role in keeping all three boys grounded while the demands of playing and coaching in the NBA kept his dad on the road for huge chunks of time. He jokes that he and his mom—who still lives only 10 minutes away and attends a good number of Nashville home games—have found the perfect equilibrium. “We have a great relationship: She doesn’t annoy me too much and I don’t annoy her too much,” he says with a wry smile. “You know, you gotta grow up at some point.”

It feels like that time is now, meaning Jones should be in for a great season—and the Nashville blueline is about to go from enviable to downright unfair.

This story originally appeared in Sportsnet magazine.