ECHL: Heartlanders’ Peyton Jones earns Goaltender of the Week

Coralville, Iowa- It wasn’t much of a shock to Iowa fans when Peyton Jones was announced as the Warrior Hockey ECHL Goaltender of the Week on Monday, November 13th. Jones had guided the team to the longest home win streak and allowed only three goals over 180 minutes of hockey.

What was unexpectedly welcome, however, was fans watching Jones make save after save and not allowing any goals over 109 minutes (53 saves in that span). Even then, the goal that ended that streak was controversial. This ended up not mattering in the end, as Kalamazoo’s mistakes allowed the Heartlanders to control the remainder of that Saturday night game.

Jones tallied 90 saves while going 3-0 during the week of November 6-12 with a stellar .967 save percentage and was named either the first or second star of all three Iowa wins.

Peyton, brother of Nolan, who is an on-base specialist for the MLB’s Colorado Rockies, is the first Iowa player to be named Goaltender of the Week, and this is the first weekly award to return to Iowa since 2021-22 when former Captain Kris Bennett won Player of the Week for January 31-February 6, 2022, for his 4 goals and three assist week.

Peyton Jones has presumably won the starting job over former Minnesota Wild draftee Hunter Jones due to Peyton’s dominance between the pipes. While he appears to have earned most of the minutes, there is minimal reason to believe that one goalie will get all the playing time over the other if they are both healthy, as Iowa’s schedule has many travel days and two or three consecutive days with games throughout the season.

Peyton Jones and the Iowa Heartlanders will return to Xtream Arena looking to extend their three-game win streak on Wednesday, November 15^th, for a 10:35 am Field Trip Day battle with Peyton’s former team, the Utah Grizzlies. Both teams have 8 points entering the weekend and will play three games between Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday as Iowa looks to tally their first win against the Grizzlies.