Max Jones<\/a>, well, there\u2019s a limited window to leave an impression. On the ice, that is.<\/p>\nOff the ice, however, Jones has become everything a team needs in a support player.<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel more connected to these guys than I ever have in my career. With any team \u2014\u00a0Boston, Anaheim,\u201d Jones was saying after Wednesday\u2019s practice. \u201cI can be myself, and they love me for who I am. Sometimes it brings them a lot of laughs, and that\u2019s just the way it is.\u201d<\/p>\n
Evan Bouchard played his junior hockey with Jones in London.<\/p>\n
\u201cWho is Jones off the ice?\u201d Bouchard is asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cAn idiot,\u201d Bouchard laughed. \u201cNo, he’s goofy, loud. He’s a fun guy for everyone else to be around. A funny guy in the room.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat’s putting it nicely,\u201d smiled Jones, when informed of Bouchard\u2019s review.<\/p>\n
The two emerged from the Hunter brothers\u2019 hockey player factory in London, both first-round picks, each destined for big minutes and NHL stardom.<\/p>\n
Bouchard ended up in the Team Canada and Norris conversations, a genuine No. 1 D-man who exceeded any expectations the Oilers had of him back on draft day<\/p>\n
And Jones? Well, it\u2019s been a bit of a battle.<\/p>\n
As a junior, he scored a goal every second game as a fast, bruising winger with good hands and great wheels.<\/p>\n
\u201cI played the same style as I play now, but I had a lot more leash,\u201d Jones said. \u201cGrowing up, playing in a Top 6 role, you get a little bit more room to be more creative. Be a little bit more involved in the game.\u201d<\/p>\n
But slowly, Jones lost what got him to the NHL. The confidence, the decisiveness\u2026 Doubt crept into his game, as the hockey world and he came to grips on what, exactly, his role would have to be to remain an NHL player.<\/p>\n
The 24th\u00a0overall pick in 2016, Jones showed up in Anaheim two years after Nick Ritchie, another six-foot-three, Ontario Hockey League, first-round bruiser who never panned out as a Duck (but still played almost 500 NHL games).<\/p>\n
\u201cYou get coaches that can be a little hard on you, or they’ll be a little too easy on you,\u201d Jones said of his early days in Anaheim, under a tough head coach in Randy Carlyle, then a more nuanced Dallas Eakins. \u201cAs a player, you\u2019ve got to be able to fine-tune your confidence and be able to bring what you can bring without feeling like, \u2018Oh no, I’m going to make a mistake.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cI just remember my first couple years, just being so nervous to make a mistake. Who knows? Maybe that’s kind of what happened. You fall into your role.\u201d<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a moment in many highly drafted players\u2019 career where they have to decide whether they are going to be able to remain an NHLer, playing the same offensive role they played in junior or college? Or, like an Andrew Cogliano, do they have to take their skills and apply them to a lesser role \u2014 but enjoy a long career perhaps preventing goals more than scoring them?<\/p>\n
At 28, Jones is there now, a banging fourth-liner who can bury a chance when he gets one. But in Edmonton, he\u2019s a guy who can provide energy with a body check or a fight, far more often than he will by lighting the lamp.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don’t know if it ever just like, hit me where I was like, \u2018OK, This is it,\u2019\u201d he said. \u201cWhen I came here, to a Stanley Cup-contending team, your ego and everything’s got to go on the back burner. You\u2019ve just got to come in and fill a role.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was like, \u2018All right, I’m going to come up (from Bakersfield) and do what I can do to help the team. Whatever situation they want me for. I know I can help in a lot of different aspects, and whatever the coach wants me to do, I can do it.\u201d<\/p>\n
On a team that has always sought ways to turn momentum in-game by some other method than simply scoring a goal, Jones may have found his niche. He\u2019s a burly fourth-line winger who can reconcile with playing eight minutes a night, on a playoff team that needs a boost now and again from someone not named McDavid, Draisaitl or Bouchard.<\/p>\n
\u201cJonesey’s game,\u201d Bouchard said, \u201cyou can play it a few different ways, right? He’s got the skill to him, but I think he’s most effective when he’s hitting, skating, getting in on the forecheck. That’s when he’s most effective, but you’ll notice he’ll pull out a backhand toe drag to show he’s still got the skill.\u201d<\/p>\n
A hit, a goal, a laugh or two\u2026 Many a fourth-liner has made a living on those.<\/p>\n
Why not Max Jones in Edmonton?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EDMONTON \u2014\u00a0During the Oilers\u2019 McDrai era, Edmonton has become a place where fourth liners come to disappear. It…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":576543,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194294],"tags":[49,48,23752],"class_list":{"0":"post-576542","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-edmonton","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-edmonton"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/576542","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=576542"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/576542\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/576543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=576542"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=576542"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=576542"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}