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USA Hockey’s Jack Hughes expected No. 1 pick in NHL draft
Jack Hughes draws a crowd. Detroit general manager Ken Holland and former Red Wing star Steve Yzerman chatted during the first intermission of one of Hughes’ recent games. Scouts from the NHL were scattered throughout USA Hockey Arena that night, taking notes for teams paying them to evaluate the world’s best hockey players.
Hughes, a 17-year-old centre, will likely be the top pick in the NHL draft in June.
USA Hockey has developed the nation’s top players for more than two-plus decades and four of them have been selected No. 1 overall – including Auston Matthews and Patrick Kane – from its National Team Development Program. Hughes is expected to be next.
“He’s as good as I’ve seen come through here in terms of talent, work ethic and being the complete package on and off the ice,” said senior director of operations Scott Monaghan, who has been with the program since its inception in 1996. “He’s more like Patrick because of his skating and shiftiness than Auston, who was really big and strong.
“We have 30 to 40 scouts at most of our home games and as many as 60 because Jack is on a team with as many as six, seven or eight first-round picks.”
Hughes chose to surround himself with the best American hockey players his age as an amateur instead of the Ontario Hockey League. He also could have graduated high school a year early to play with his brother, Quinn, a freshman at Michigan and a defenceman drafted No. 7 overall last summer by the Vancouver Canucks.
“I feel like it’s the best place to be for a 16-year, 17-year-old,” Hughes told The Associated Press. “No one trains as hard as us. We skate every day. We lift three days a week. We play a great schedule. I think it’s the best place to be to groom yourself to be an NHL player someday.”
Hughes was born in Orlando, Fla., where his father, Jim, was assistant coach for the Solar Bears in the International Hockey League. The family moved to Boston, New Hampshire and Toronto.
The five-foot-10, 168-pound Hughes feasts on the competition wherever he goes, playing U.S.based colleges against players much older and bigger than him.