Hughes is looking out for No. 1
17-year-old ‘as good as’ any prospect to enter USA Hockey youth program
PLYMOUTH, MICH. — Jack
Hughes draws a crowd.
Detroit general manager Ken Holland and former Red Wings star Steve Yzerman chatted during the first intermission of one of Hughes’s recent games. Scouts from the National Hockey
League 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 the Toronto Maple Leafs’ Auston Matthews — 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 getting paid as the No. 1 pick in 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.
Jim Hughes later became director of player development for the Maple Leafs, moving the family to the Toronto area.
“I always played him a year up and that’s not easy to do in the hockey mecca of the world,” Jim Hughes said. “Even when he was 5, you could see he had a special skill set. As he got older, coaches were yelling at their players to hit him and teams were trying to attack him. And quite frankly, he was still dominant.”
Ellen Hughes taught her sons how to skate. She drew on her experience from playing for the U.S. women’s national hockey team and at New Hampshire, where she was also on the soccer team.
“When Jack would go outside to play, older boys would always pick him even though he was at least two years younger than the rest of them and he always wanted the puck,” Ellen Hughes recalled.
“We never had to push him. It was always organic and Toronto was just the best place for him to prepare him for what he’s doing now.”
Jack Hughes starts his day at 6:15 a.m. with two eggs on a bagel with cream cheese and salami along with some fresh fruit, orange juice and a vitamin. He has to arrive at school shortly after 7 a.m. and if he’s tardy or misses a class, USA Hockey has a staff member who knows it and there are consequences.
“There’s no sleeping in,” Jack Hughes said. “They’ll sit you for a period if you’re late or skip a class, or if you’re late for the bus.”
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, as well as in the United States Hockey League and international competition.