Penn State Sports Magazine
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/775386
VARSITY VIEWS H eading into the 2016-17 season, the goaltender position was the root of some concern for coach Guy Gad- owsky and his Penn State ice hockey staff. Eamon McAdam, a second-team All- Big Ten honoree, had elected to forgo his senior year and take his place in the farm system of the New York Islanders. His de- parture meant that the Nittany Lions would have to choose between two largely untested candidates to replace him: sophomore Chris Funkey and freshman Peyton Jones. Funkey had played well enough for the Lions in limited minutes during his fresh- man campaign to be a candidate for the starting role, sporting a .933 save per- centage in four games. But for Gadowsky, Jones' raw potential was too great to ignore. "He's an athlete. I mean, he's a big, big, big athlete," the Lions' fifth-year coach said. "He's a big athlete physically, and he's a big-time athlete. He's someone that had a lot of success. I love his atti- tude. He's a bit of a goalie, but in a really positive way. He's someone that showed that he had a lot of success as a starter in the USHL, and he deserves every oppor- tunity to see if he can do that at the Big Ten level." That decision has since paid off in a big way. With half of the regular season under his belt, Jones' performance has been so good that goaltending is now close to the bottom of Gadowsky's list of concerns. Standing at the forefront of a Penn State defense that had allowed the second- fewest goals in all of college hockey as of mid-January, Jones has been impressive since the moment he first put on a blue HIGH NET WORTH New goalie Peyton Jones has quickly become one of PSU's biggest assets | FAST START Jones, a true freshman, has been Penn State's starter since the beginning of the season and was sporting the Big Ten's top goals against aver- age as of mid-January. Photo by Mark Selders/Penn State Athletics