Future star Hughes needs time to blossom
The coach was fired. The best player was traded. And it was only November. In the next three months, Jack Hughes would lose the general manager that drafted him first overall, as well as five of his teammates, including the captain.
So, yeah, the 18- year- old has a conflicted view of his first season in the National Hockey League.
“It was pretty rocky for sure,” he said in a phone interview from his parents’ home in Michigan. “You could say that.”
Rocky? That’s one way of describing it.
As far as highly touted prospects go, the American-born but Toronto-raised centre might not have been considered a generational talent at this time last year. But he was pretty close. Hughes had tied Auston Matthews’ single- season scoring record at the U. S. National Development Team Program and had a skill- set that drew ample comparisons to Connor Mcdavid and Patrick Kane.
It was safe to assume that the New Jersey Devils rookie was going to tear it up. After all, that’s what he had done his entire hockey career.
In his final year of minor hockey, Hughes scored 159 points in 80 games for the Toronto Marlboros. At the under-18 world championship, he had broken Alex Ovechkin’s goal- scoring record and completed his two years at the NDTP with a record 190 points — more than Matthews, Kane and Phil Kessel.
When the Devils selected him, the expectation was that Hughes would step in and make an immediate impact. Hughes expected the same. As a 5- foot- 10 and 170- pound forward, he knew that playing against men was going to be a challenge. But he also knew that he was joining a New Jersey Devils team that had 2018 Hart Trophy winner Taylor Hall in its lineup and had acquired P. K. Subban and Wayne Simmonds in the summer.
Pre- season predictions had the Devils as a playoff contender and had Hughes as the favourite to win the Calder Trophy. The hype was real.
“I was an optimist for sure,” the Florida- born and Toronto-raised centre said. “I knew a lot about the league, but at the same time I knew very little.”
Hughes didn’t know it was going to be this hard, this ugly. No one did.
In a year that was dysfunctional at best, the Devils lost their first six games. Hughes didn’t have a point in any of them. He scored his first two goals in the eighth and ninth games of the season, but by
Dec. 3, both head coach John Hynes and Taylor Hall, the 2018 Hart Trophy winner, were both gone. Next was GM Ray Shero in January. By the trade deadline, Hall said goodbye to Simmonds, Blake Coleman, Sami Vatanen, goalie Louis Domingue and captain Andy Greene.
If the season, which is on pause due to the coronavirus, ends up resuming with the playoffs, it will be without the 26th-ranked Devils.
Maybe that is for the best. Why drag out a year in which Hughes didn’t draw comparisons to Matthews or Mcdavid, but rather put up numbers similar to one of the biggest busts in NHL history? And yet, if you think this year is an indication of what the future holds for Hughes, think again.
He is as optimistic as he was six months ago that he will produce big numbers in the NHL, that he’ll have a long and successful career and that the Devils will soon contend for a championship.
In some ways, he’s guaranteeing it.
“One thing you take from it is that I hope that I never have a year that is as crazy as this year,” he said. “In the future, none of this happens again. It’s a winning culture. And it’s a winning culture, because I’m making it a winning culture.”
We’ve been spoiled. From Sidney Crosby and Alex Ovechkin to Matthews and Mcdavid, the list of No. 1 picks who have come into the league and made an immediate impact is as long as it is consistent. There’s a reason why we refer to them as can’t-miss prospects.
Ten of the past 14 Hart Trophy winners were drafted first overall. Five of the past 13 Calder Trophy winners were top picks. Even the socalled first- overall “busts” produced right away.
Nail Yakupov, who was out of the league after six seasons, led rookies with 17 goals and 31 points in 48 games during the lockout- shortened 2012-13 season. Defenceman Erik Johnson, who was picked ahead of Jordan Staal, Jonathan Toews and Nicklas Backstrom — not to mention Kessel, Claude Giroux and Brad Marchand — had five goals and 33 points in 69 games as a rookie.
Alexandre “No One Remembers No. 2” Daigle had 20 goals as a rookie.
Hughes has 21 points. He has scored just seven goals in 61 games.
You have to go back two decades to find the last No. 1 pick to produce so little. And the player’s name isn’t one to make the Devils feel confident about the future. Patrik Stefan had five goals and 25 points as a rookie. He would never score more than 14 goals or 40 points in an NHL career that lasted just seven seasons.
Of course, if we’re mentioning the past, then it’s worth mentioning that the last No. 1 pick to finish with less than 20 points — whether it was a forward or a defenceman — was Joe Thornton, who scored three goals and seven points in 55 games in 1997-98.
The following year, Thornton had 16 goals and 41 points. He scored 23 goals and 60 points in his third season and had 37 goals and 71 points in his fourth. By Year 6, he finished with 101 points, and won the Art Ross Trophy as the league’s top scorer three years later.
In other words, give Hughes some time.
“Who knows when he’s going to pop,” said John Wroblewski, who coached Hughes for two years at the NTDP. “It might not happen for a few years, but he’s going to have a Mcdavid year soon. It’s going to happen. He’s that special.”
Why it didn’t happen right away involves the nature versus nurture argument.
The Devils were so dysfunctional this year that they made the Ottawa Senators look like a model franchise. There was no stability.
“A lot of changes,” said Hughes. “A lot of changes in very high impact spots. Our captain getting moved. Our best player getting moved. I didn’t expect it to shake down like that.”
While Hughes was having the rookie season from hell, his older brother, Quinn, was enjoying a Calder Trophy- worthy season with the playoff- contending Vancouver Canucks. It was an example of how much personal success was tied to team success.
“It’s brutal,” said Quinn, a defenceman who is leading all rookies with 53 points.
“When I saw the coach and the GM get fired, it was frustrating to watch from afar, just how unstable it was over there. It’s a team sport. Look at my Michigan team last year. I felt that I was playing at the top of my game, and we were a .500 team.
“He’s a mentally strong kid. He’s seen some stuff before. I think the experience he went through is going to help him down the line.”
As mentally strong as Hughes is, he has a lot of growing to do from a physical standpoint. He’s built more like Mitch Marner than Matthews. And while Marner’s lack of size and strength hasn’t held him back, he also didn’t make his NHL debut until a year after he was drafted. The same goes for Quinn Hughes.
Montreal Canadiens prospect Cole Caufield, who set the NTDP goal- scoring record on a line with Hughes, spent the year at the University of Wisconsin, where he’s committed to another year. But Hughes has no regrets about jumping straight to the NHL.
“That never crossed my mind at once,” he said. “I’m an 18-year-old playing in the NHL. It’s pretty good, man. I wouldn’t change a thing.”
Wroblewski agreed that Hughes would have not have benefited from a year spent in the NCAA or in the Ontario Hockey League.
“It wouldn’t have made sense at all,” he said. “Kids like Jack are wired for one destination and that’s the best.”
Still, this extended off-season could go a long way in helping Hughes add bulk to his boyish frame.
“At this point, it’s just time,” Devils interim head coach Alain Nasreddine said of Hughes during an appearance this week on Sportsnet’s Hockey Central. “There’s no secret that he’s young. He’s 18; he’s got to grow into his body; he’s got to add some strength; he’s got to add some muscle and that’s basically what’s holding him back I would say right now.
“Everyone can see the talent. Everyone can see what he can bring to the game but right now it’s a tough league. It’s a men’s league.”
With the season on hiatus, Hughes has been quarantined with his brothers at his parents’ home in Michigan. His goal this summer is to get stronger — both physically and mentally. The latter is where his dad, a former player development coach with the Toronto Maple Leafs, has offered perspective.
His best piece of advice: one year does not make a career.
“It was obviously frustrating, but there were a lot of variables,” said Hughes. “A lot of posts, a lot of missed chances. I know I only have 21 ( points), but I could have easily been around 30 or 35. It was frustrating from that point. But I know that I’m going to have a long career. I’m going to produce.”
“I’m hungry to get better and prove to myself that I can have a great season.”