Seth Jones credits his mom the most for developing his skills

When discussing top prospect Seth Jones, the natural reflex is to remind people that his father “Popeye” enjoyed a long NBA career. Surely his father helped him hone his skills, yet Seth told USA Hockey.com that his mother Amy might have made the biggest impact on his development.

Especially when it came to working on his skating ability.

“It was my mom’s idea,” Jones said. “She actually said, ‘You’re not going to play hockey if you can’t skate. You’re not going to be the slow one out there.’ So it was kind of a funny thing. I give thanks to her for that one.”

Jones reiterated just how important it is to be a mobile defenseman.

“You can’t play if you can’t skate, especially nowadays,” Jones said. “It’s not like 10, 15 years ago in the NHL where you can hook people and ride people and hold people. The whole game is based around skating and speed.”

Just like mom said.