#'GENETICALLY THE TRIO WAS BRED TO BE HOCKEY PLAYERS'

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Building a prodigy: How Jack Hughes’ blend of skill and personality morphed him into a top NHL prospect

Published: Jun. 21, 2019

Jack Hughes was pissed.

Standing in the driveway of his billet family house in Plymouth, Mich. — finally free to do so in the early spring after the cold, oppressing winter broke — Hughes grabbed a basketball, his eyes red with revenge.

Moments earlier, United States National Team Development Program teammate Alex Turcotte dunked directly over Hughes. Poster-worthy jams came frequently on the intentionally lowered nets, and Hughes wasn’t going let Turcotte have the last word.

The 5-10, 171-pound hockey player took the ball, drove to the net, catapulted toward the rim and unleashed hell.

“He got so mad,” NTDP defenseman Marshall Warren said. "Just went the other way and dunked on everyone.”

That outburst came during innocent pickup hoops played among some of Hughes’ best friends. Those circumstances never stopped him from being the first rip off his shirt, playing until sweat streamed from every pore on his body.

The desire to never be outdone stems from Hughes’ attitude on the hockey rink, where during his teenage years, his drive and skill transformed him into a top NHL prospect, which could culminate with his likely No. 1 overall selection by the Devils at the 2019 NHL Draft on Friday in Vancouver.

Even while scouts and coaches sung his praises as he tore through every level of youth hockey, Hughes developed his own distinct personality off the ice. His drive bled out in some aspects of life, but Hughes found ways to turn off his engine away from game that defined him.

"You get him into those athletic situations and he’s the ultimate competitor, but he’s able to flip the switch off, which I think bodes very well for him long term,” NTDP head coach John Wroblewski said. "Not just as a hockey player, but as a functioning adult and a product of a good family."

A JERSEY DOWN TO HIS KNEES

When Wroblewski accepted the heading coaching position at the NTDP in 2016, he inherited a group of 17-year-olds born in 1999 as the first group auditioning for his U18 team. Running spring practices in Plymouth, he was still getting acclimated with the names, faces and skills of his new roster.

Before a practice, Jeremiah Crowe, then the program’s director of player personnel, approached the coach and told Wroblewski another player would be skating with the team. He was the younger brother of Quinn Hughes, one of his 17-year-old defensemen. His name was Jack.

Wroblewski took the ice, and as the team trickled out, he saw a small, skinny 15-year-old kid emerge from the tunnel, with skaters two years his elder towering over him. Hughes’ assigned jersey hung down to his knees.

Yet the scrawny center skated with power rivaling any 17-year-old on the ice, and that group of teenagers was the best the United States had to offer. Wroblewski couldn’t keep his eyes off the kid that was supposed to be 24 months away being there.

"He had this magnetic ability, the puck just kept finding him and finding him,” Wroblewski recalled. "And when it did, the opposition couldn’t shut him down. They would give him too much time and space because he had this kind of forcefield that great players have.”

But the newest members of the U18 team picked up on this. Eventually, they stopped respecting the underage boy skating circles around them. They collapsed on Hughes, attempting to take away the freedom that came so easily.

That didn’t make a difference.

“If somebody rushed at him, he’d slide it right through their legs and go around them,” Wroblewski said. "It was amazing how he could manipulate players two years older than him and fit right in and be one of the best offensive players on the ice for two straight days.”

To Wroblewski and those seeing Hughes up close for the first time, it came as a mild shock, even with some of the murmurs that accompanied his arrival. They’d only heard secondhand what the crafty forward was doing from the day he put on skates.

Some of Hughes’ eventual NTDP teammates skated with him for the first time years earlier. In 2011, Hughes and a gaggle of 10-year-olds suited up for the Brick Invitational Hockey Tournament in Edmonton, blissfully unaware of the future that awaited some them with the NTDP.

Even then, among players barely old enough to access their skills and talents on the ice, Hughes shined among his peers.

RAISED TO SUCCEED

The Hughes clan has already been dubbed the next great American hockey family.

Quinn Hughes, the oldest of three brothers, was the seventh overall pick in the 2018 NHL Draft, and he’ll be a mainstay on the Vancouver Canucks’ blue line for years to come.

After Jack inevitably goes at or near the top of the draft on Friday, the youngest of the three siblings, Luke Hughes, will follow in their footsteps. The defenseman will likely hear his name called in the 2021 NHL Draft.

Genetically, the trio was bred to be hockey players. The brothers’ father, Jim Hughes, played college hockey at Providence. That never blossomed into a long pro playing career, but he carved out his path coaching in the NHL and AHL before becoming the Toronto Maple Leafs’ director of player development.

Their mother, Ellen Weinberg-Hughes, was the one that taught the brothers most of their hockey chops. A former player on the U.S. Women’s National Team and a member of the University of New Hampshire athletic hall of fame, she introduced the three to skating. Then she showed them how to excel at the sport that came so naturally.

"She was our coach,” Jack Hughes said. "Our dad, when we were young, was coaching pro, on the road a lot, so it’s not like when you have a game, you get a fly by. Our mom, she knew the game too, so you’d hear it from her.”

But aside from Jack Hughes’ prodigious skill on the ice, the two parents molded the forward to be the person capable of handling the attention off of it.

"How does a kid who’s that good and has been tabbed the No. 1 pick, remain humble and hungry, and just overall a good person?” Wroblewski said. "You can’t look any farther than the parents.”

The NTDP cycles in class after class of America’s top hockey talent, plucked from every corner of the U.S., with the sole goal of developing the country’s next superstars.

Hughes fits that mold in every sense of the word, from his competitiveness and desire to never be second best. Yet away from the ice, Hughes’ life isn’t dominated by the game.

He has a shoe collection. He plays video games and poker. He golfs. He hangs out with friends. He does what, by most standards, many normal American teenagers do when they can escape the daily grind of school and sports.

His teammates don’t see him as an untouchable prodigy. Hughes never looked down on them from a pedestal as praise and hype followed him at every turn and continuously gained steam as he aged.

"He’s kind of a goofy kid. Loves hanging out with his buddies. Just making jokes,” teammate Trevor Zegras said. “To me, he’s always just been Jack.”

THE PATH TO NO. 1

David Gregory tried to avoid the hype. He heard the name more than enough, but like any prospect, he wanted to see for himself before drawing his own conclusions.

A North American scout for NHL Central Scouting, tasked with watching and evaluating hundreds of skaters every year across the U.S. and Canada, Gregory walked into Plymouth’s rink and saw Hughes at a camp, trying out for the development program.

Gregory saw Hughes again in his first U18 game, where the center received an early promotion as a 16-year-old. Gregory didn’t need that second viewing to know Hughes would live up to his billing.

“He’s already at full speed and he figures out how to find this other gear,” Gregory said. "If a hole opens up or there’s an opportunity to get to a different spot to make a play, he just finds more speed. It’s pretty amazing to watch.”

From the moment the whispers started years ago about Hughes potentially being the No. 1 overall pick, all the way through the palpable hype during his 2018-19 season, his teammates and coaches never saw a shift in the forward’s demeanor.

Traveling back from a European tournament on a Monday, the U18 team had a quick turnaround for a USHL road game in Omaha on Friday. Hughes roared from the get-go, skating with the ferocity of someone playing in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final.

“He’s flying around the ice, and the other team’s trying to kill him. Literally,” Wroblewski said. "Three guys are trying to go after him and he’s still doing his thing and dishing pucks."

That consistent drive helped Hughes shatter the all-time scoring record at the NTDP, previously set at 189 points by current Arizona Coyotes forward Clayton Keller. Hughes’ 228 career points also dwarfed the production of current NHL stars Phil Kessel, Patrick Kane and Auston Matthews.

As Hughes racked up record after record, he was still routinely the first on the ice for practices. If the goalies needed a shooter for drills beforehand, he was the first to volunteer.

"That’s also a part of a why he’s so good. He hates losing. He wants to be a difference maker all the time, which I think is why he’s going to be a special player,” goalie Spencer Knight said. “That’s something people might not see about him. Besides all the skill and the glamour, he’s a really good guy, and he’s always working hard.”