The Utah Mammoth have added another defenseman to the mix, recalling Zac Jones from the Tucson Roadrunners for his first NHL call-up of the season.
Jones becomes the fourth Roadrunner to earn a promotion to the NHL this season and the third defenseman to do it. The 26-year-old is in his first year with the organization and has made a strong case in Tucson, piling up 11 points (3 goals, 8 assists) with a plus-1 rating and six penalty minutes in 13 AHL games.
He’s been especially effective on the power play, where his five assists lead the team, and he also tops Tucson’s defensemen in goals, assists and points. Among AHL defensemen, he is tied for sixth in scoring.
At 5-foot-11 and 190 pounds, Jones brings a long track record of production to the recall. Across parts of five AHL seasons with Tucson, the Rochester Americans and Hartford Wolf Pack, he has 140 points (31 goals, 109 assists) and 79 penalty minutes in 181 regular-season games. He has also chipped in six points (2 goals, 4 assists) and eight penalty minutes in 12 Calder Cup Playoff games.
His NHL résumé is not small either. Jones has played parts of five seasons with the New York Rangers from 2020-25, collecting 28 points (4 goals, 24 assists) and 38 penalty minutes in 115 career NHL games. Last season, he set NHL career highs with 46 games played, 11 points and 10 assists for New York.
That same 2024-25 season was a big one in the AHL as well. With Rochester, Jones posted 62 points (10 goals, 52 assists) and 14 penalty minutes in 60 games, leading the league in assists and all defensemen in points.
He earned First Team AHL All-Star honors and was selected to represent the North Division at the 2026 AHL All-Star Classic for the first time in his career. He also led all AHL skaters in power-play points with 38 and power-play assists with 36, while finishing first among league defensemen with 168 shots on goal.
Jones’ NHL numbers came with some underlying value too. He ranked third among Rangers defensemen in takeaways per 60 minutes at 1.20, behind Adam Fox at 1.39 and K’Andre Miller at 1.73, and he finished second among the club’s blueliners in average power-play ice time per game at 1:29.
A Richmond, Virginia native, Jones is the sixth Virginia-born player to appear in an NHL game. Before turning pro, he spent two seasons at UMass and helped the Minutemen win the program’s first NCAA national championship in 2020-21. As a sophomore, he earned NCAA (East) Second Team All-American honors, along with First Team All-Hockey East and NCAA All-Tournament Team recognition after finishing second among NCAA defensemen in goals with nine and putting up 24 points in 29 games.
As a freshman in 2019-20, he was named to the Hockey East All-Rookie Team after ranking third among NCAA rookie defensemen in scoring with 23 points (3 goals, 20 assists) in 32 games.
Jones has also represented Team USA on the international stage. He won bronze at the 2021 IIHF World Championship with three assists in 10 games and played at the 2020 IIHF World Junior Championship, where he had two points (1 goal, 1 assist) in five games.
He signed a two-year, two-way contract with the Mammoth on July 1, 2026, and was originally drafted by the Rangers in the third round, 68th overall, in the 2019 NHL Draft.
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