SAN JOSE, Calif. _ Jordan Jones saw his younger brother go off to the Los Angeles Kings' training camp as an undrafted 18-year-old goalie in 2008 and figured it would be a nice, but short, experience.
Martin Jones' stay lasted a lot longer than most people thought, including Jordan. By the time the Kings sent him back to junior hockey, he had an entry-level contract with the organization.
"We definitely were all only expecting it to be for a couple days and he'd go and see what happens," said Jordan, who is five years older than Martin. "But he ended up staying a lot longer than we expected and making it a lot longer than a lot of the guys there."
It seems Martin Jones has always made the most of his opportunities.
Sunday, in only his second season as a starting goalie, Jones will play in his first NHL All-Star Game.
"This is an amazing opportunity for people to find out more about Martin Jones," NBC analyst Pierre McGuire said this week. "I'm bullish on Martin Jones. I think most people that watch the league every night would feel the same way."
Jones, 27, is a big reason the Sharks are tied for first the Pacific Division. He has a 25-15-2 record, a .916 save percentage and a 2.25 goals-against average. After backstopping the Sharks to the Stanley Cup Final in his first full season as a No. 1 goalie, he's proving to be no flash in the pan.
"I like the fact that he hasn't had a fall-off, which is hard to do in your second year as being the No. 1 guy," said NHL Network analyst Darren Pang, a former Chicago Blackhawks goalie.
"There's a bigger book on you, there's more video. I can sit here and watch 105 goals against Martin Jones. Everybody does it, yet he's maintaining and holding the fort with a real even keeled-ness about his game."
The first thing Sharks fans, players and coaches, noticed about Jones early in his first full season in San Jose was his calm presence in the net. His positioning is solid. He relies more on fundamentals than athleticism to make saves, making difficult stops look easy.
Jones is bringing the same calm to his first All-Star Game.
"It's cool. Definitely something to be proud of," he said. "I haven't thought about it too much, but it's going to be a fun experience. Just to kind of be in the mix with some of these guys is cool."
Some of the guys will include Sharks teammates Joe Pavelski and Brent Burns and Sharks coach Pete DeBoer. Jones will be the third Sharks goalie to play in the All-Star Game, joining Arturs Irbe (1994) and Evgeni Nabokov (2001, 2008).
There are 44 players on the All Star roster _ 11 from each division, playing in a 3-on-3 tournament. Only two were undrafted: Jones and Columbus goalie Sergei Bobrovsky.
After signing with the Kings out of that first training camp in 2008, Jones became the No. 1 goalie for the Calgary Hitmen and helped the team advance to the WHL Finals in 2009 and win a league championship in 2010. He earned a spot on Team Canada for the 2010 World Junior Championships, and won a silver medal.
He went on to become the No. 1 goalie for the Manchester Monarchs of the AHL.
At the time, the Kings had Jonathan Quick as their No. 1 goalie and Jonathan Bernier as the backup. When Bernier was traded to Toronto in 2013, Ben Scrivens became the backup to Quick.
But in November of that season, Quick suffered a groin injury, making Scrivens the No. 1 goalie and Jones the backup. Scrivens went 6-1-4 as he made 11 straight starts. Jones one-upped him. After a triumphant NHL debut, he delivered two shutouts en route to eight consecutive victories.
Scrivens was traded. Jones finished the season 12-6 with a .934 save percentage.
"He needed a break and he got a break," said Cam Paddock, who played with Jones in Manchester for the 2011-12 season. "The cool thing was he did so much with it. He won his first (eight) games, and that's unheard of. Talk about taking your chances and running with it. That's what he did."
Paddock is now the director of hockey operations for the North Shore Winter Club in North Vancouver, British Columbia. It's a place that counts Joe Sakic, Paul Kariya and Brett Hull among its alumni, but Jones might be the club's most popular former player.
Jones is the only player to bring the Stanley Cup to the winter club, doing so after the Kings' 2013-14 championship season. No wonder, then, that club members were riveted to the Sharks' playoff run last spring.
"We wanted another Stanley Cup day," Paddock joked.
Jones wins wherever he goes. In junior hockey, he won 105 of 142 regular-season starts. In the AHL, he went 83-57-12. His NHL record is 78-48-8.
It started at a young age. Jones got his first set of goalie pads when he was about 10 years old and has been stopping whatever has been shot his way since.
"We used to put the couch on its side and the couch would be the net downstairs and I would shoot on him," Jordan Jones said. "But he always loved it. It wasn't like he was forced to play in net. He took a shine to it.
"I remember from a young age, he was good. He was tough to score on from down in the basement or down on the street."
All-Star Games are notoriously tough on goalies. It's no easier now with the 3-on-3 format coming back for another season.
Still, it's an experience Jones plans to relish, especially since it's in Los Angeles, the city where in so many ways his journey to this moment began.
