Dec. 6, 2016
ROSEMONT, Ill. - Freshman Peyton Jones (Langhorne, Pa.) has been named the Big Ten First Star of the Week while classmate Denis Smirnov (Moscow, Russia) has earned Third Star accolades as announced by the league office earlier Tuesday morning.
This marks the second First Star nod for Jones and his third overall weekly honor during the first half of the season while Smirnov also earns his third weekly honor after receiving Second and First Star accolades during the month of November.
Jones was brilliant during a weekend sweep of No. 20 Michigan as he led the entire Big Ten in goals against average (1.00) only allowing a single goal in each contest while his .962 save percentage for the weekend also topped the B1G and was good for third nationally.
The rookie net-minder remains unbeaten at 11-0-1, securing the nation's best record while his 1.97 goals against average and .920 save percentage both rank first in the Big Ten and are good for ninth and 15th in the nation, respectively.
Smirnov registered multi-point games during both ends of last week's sweep of the Wolverines as he dished out a trio of assists during a 6-1 victory Thursday before scoring a goal and adding an assist in a 5-1 triumph on Friday.
The rookie winger has now recorded nine multi-point efforts this season and has four games with three points as his 27 points already tie the Penn State single-season freshman points record set by Casey Bailey and Andrew Sturtz. Smirnov's 17 assists are also a new program record for single-season freshman assists.
Both his points and assist totals place him first in the Big Ten and third in the nation while he leads the entire country in freshman scoring. Smirnov's averaging 1.80 points per game which is the most amongst rookies and third best in all of NCAA Division I. Only Kyle Connor (1.87) last season has had a higher points per game average as a freshman since 2000.
The Nittany Lions are off for over a month during semester break and return to action with a pair of road contests against No. 10 Ohio State on January 6-7, 2017.