Heartlanders ink quartet of players

Coralville, Iowa –The Iowa Heartlanders, ECHL affiliate of the National Hockey League's Minnesota Wild and American Hockey League's Iowa Wild, announced the team’s first signings for the 2023-24 season, agreeing to terms with forward Yuki Miura, defenseman Kevin McKernan, forward Tanner MacMaster and goaltender Peyton Jones.Miura, McKernan and MacMaster are returners to the team. Miura is in his third season with Iowa. McKernan and MacMaster are in their sixth years as professionals and second seasons with Iowa.Jones enters his fourth professional campaign after spending last season overseas in the Elite Ice Hockey League with Belfast and Nottingham. Prior to that, Jones played his first two seasons in the ECHL and AHL with Utah and Colorado.

With 112 games played in an Iowa sweater, Miura is one of two players in team history to play in at least 100 games, joining Zach White, who has skated in 123 contests. The Toyko, Japan native scored a career-high 11 goals and 30 points in 71 games with Iowa while playing a key role on the penalty kill and in the team’s top-six. Miura skated for Lake Superior State from 2017-21 and tallied 29 points (8g-21a) in 100 NCAA games. Prior to joining Lake State, Miura skated for the United States Hockey League's Waterloo Black Hawks in 2016-17.McKernan joined Iowa last season in a trade with Greenville and became a key member of the team’s blue line, tallying 16 points (4g-12a) in 40 games. A sixth-year professional from Millbury, Massachusetts, McKernan, 28, has generated 85 points (16g-69a) in 264 ECHL games. MacMaster starts his sixth year as a pro in 2023-24. Last season, he scored 14 points in 31 games in Sweden’s HockeyAllvenskan for HC Vita Hasten, then signed with Iowa in January and scored 11 points (3g-8a) in 12 games. The 27-year-old has 239 games of professional experience split between the AHL, ECHL and overseas. His first three professional seasons were spent in the AHL with Utica, Toronto and Lehigh Valley, where he tallied 57 points (19g-38a) in 145 games. Jones is entering his fourth professional season and his third in North America. Last season, he combined to go 15-12-0 with a 2.84 goals-against average and .912 save percentage in the EIHL with Belfast and Nottingham.  From 2020-22, Jones appeared in 50 ECHL games with Utah and fie AHL games with Colorado. Jones won a career-best 17 games (17-9-1) with Utah in 2021-22 and helped the team reached the Western Conference Finals. The Penn State graduate is the school’s all-time winningest goaltender (76) and finished his NCAA career as the Nittany Lions leader in games played, minutes and saves. He helped Penn State to the school’s first two NCAA tournament appearances in 2017 and 2018 and was a four-year starter.