Over 200 youngsters might be chosen within the the upcoming NHL draft and, proper now, hockey might be a very powerful factor of their lives for almost each certainly one of them.
But it’s laborious to think about anybody in that choose bunch who has been extra immersed within the recreation all through their life than Westwood native and rising Northeastern sophomore Jack Hughes.
After all, not many children obtained faceoff pointers from Patrice Bergeron within the household rec room once they had been little. Hughes’ father, Kent, was the Bruins captain’s long-time agent earlier than the Montreal native accepted the Canadiens normal supervisor job final January.
One of the advantages of his father’s job for younger Jack was once in a while somebody like Bergeron can be a vacation dinner visitor at his home. He by no means took that as a right, now or then.
“It was cool growing up and being around players like that. It’s like ‘Wow, this is really cool. It’s crazy,’” mentioned the middle, the youngest of Kent and Deena’s three youngsters. “Now that I’ve gotten older, I want to be playing against him and those type of guys in a few years, so it’s a little different type of dynamic, but it’s really cool to be around professional hockey players and see what they’re like.”
A pleasant perk, to make sure. But you don’t grow to be the participant the 18-year-old Hughes is simply by being in proximity to greatness. You’ve bought to place within the work, and by all accounts he has. Most draft prognosticators have Hughes — to not be confused with the New Jersey Devils star Jack Hughes, although he typically is — going a while late within the first or early within the second spherical when the draft is held at Montreal’s Bell Centre July 7-8. And Kent had an even bigger hand in creating Jack than simply introducing him to his well-known clientele, prime trainers and expertise coaches.
Kent, who performed at Middlebury College, coached Jack within the Boston Junior Eagles program till he went to play at St. Sebastian’s when he was 16. He performed at St. Seb’s for a 12 months earlier than going to the US National Team Development Program in Michigan in 2019.
Jack joined his older brother Riley (a rising senior and a seventh-round decide of the New York Rangers) at NU final 12 months. He admittedly underwent some rising pains, typical for any Hockey East freshman however particularly one like Hughes, who had some problem in protecting weight on his 6-foot body through the season during which he posted 7-9-16 totals in 39 video games.
“I’ve got to do a better job at maintaining my weight. When I got to school in August, I was 180 pounds and by mid-December, early January, I was under 160 pounds,” mentioned Hughes. “That was hard. I got sick a couple of times (the flu in November and Covid around Christmas) and hurt my shoulder, so I couldn’t really lift as much. I wasn’t eating quite as much when I was sick, so I lost a ton of weight and I was already not big compared to guys playing college, so that was the hardest part, maintaining weight. Because I don’t have too hard of a time putting weight on, especially in the off-season. When I finished the season, I was about 160 pounds and I’ve already gained 12 pounds in the last month.”
While Hughes’ ability, hockey sense and competitiveness are his calling playing cards, he proved throughout his freshman marketing campaign that he’s bought a good serving to of grit.
In a weekend sequence in opposition to Providence final December, he suffered a shoulder separation within the first recreation. After the second recreation, the Huskies had been scheduled to have a month off, so it will have been comprehensible if he sat out the second recreation in opposition to the Friars. But after session with a number of medical individuals from the college in addition to one via his father’s connections. Jack wound up scoring two targets and including an help within the win.
“We had eight or nine guys out already with injury so I felt I had to play. I talked to my Dad before the game and he was like ‘You have to think about (the possibility that) you could get a little more hurt. You could play terrible and somebody comes to watch you and it’s the first time watching and they’ll be like ‘This kid’s terrible. Why are we even watching him?’ You have to think about that, if you feel good enough to play or you don’t’,” mentioned Jack. “And I was just thinking the whole time I was putting my team in a tough position if I don’t at least try to play. So I ended up playing and I didn’t think it was my best game, but I got rewarded a little bit with a couple of points and couple nice plays from my linemates. I guess that’s part of it, learning how to play with injury. I hadn’t really had to do that in the past. I hadn’t been really hurt significantly.”
Hughes’ effort spoke volumes to Northeastern coach Jerry Keefe.
“It showed his willingness to be an unbelievable teammate,” mentioned Keefe. “We were banged up at that point and he knew that. It wasn’t so much a risk of injury, it was more that he was worried if he would be able to be effective. And boy was he ever. Not only scored for us that weekend, but he also gave us huge minutes on both sides of the puck. That was a big series for us and he came though big time.”
While Hughes has a stable base of accountable hockey with which to work, Keefe foresees a giant bump offensively for his sophomore season.
“He is highly skilled, but he’s a really, really competitive, intelligent player,” mentioned Keefe. “He impressed not just me but more importantly, the staff and his teammates. Just his willingness to do whatever it takes to help us this year. He was giving up a lot in his age and sometimes in his strength, but he made up for it with his hockey sense and his competitiveness. I thought he was one of the better 200-foot centers in the league last year as a young kid. I think he’s got so much offense in his game, you’re going to see a huge jump in the offense next year for us, without a question. But I was just really impressed with how mature he is.”
But earlier than that sophomore season comes, he’ll hear his identify referred to as by some NHL group in what has now grow to be his father’s workplace – the Bell Centre.
Jack admits that everybody in his household was a bit of shocked that Kent would depart his profitable participant company Quartexx to work on different facet of the fence. But at some point Jack got here dwelling to seek out his father studying a French ebook to rekindle his bilingualism and figured, effectively, that is truly occurring.
“We were all super fired up for him,” mentioned Jack. “We’ve been around him our whole lives and involved in hockey, so in my opinion, he’s the most knowledgeable hockey person that I know, that I’ve met. So we were fired up. We think he’s going to do a real good job. We think he has so far with what he’s been able to do.”
Now comes the draft, which makes issues a bit of tough. Kent had shepherded many children via the method, together with older son Riley. But on the scouting mix in Buffalo final month, he discovered himself within the Montreal interview room with the Habs’ scouts and his youthful son sitting throughout the desk.
“It was different,” mentioned Kent with a chuckle. “I tried to leave and (Director of Player Personnel and Amateur Scouting) Marty Lapointe said ‘No, you should stay because if we’re going to consider this then you’re going to be a part of this anyway.’ I tried to look down at the ground and listen to the answers. I wanted him to be looking at the people who were asking him questions and not looking at me. I think in general it was probably more lighthearted than some of our interviews because of the familiarity a lot of the people in the room had with him already and with me.”
Not solely do the Habs have the primary total decide, in addition they possess the twenty sixth decide and the thirty third decide, proper about the place Jack is anticipated to be taken. But don’t count on him to be donning bleu, blanc et rouge. While Kent hasn’t utterly dominated out taking his son if he ought to for some purpose drop, the GM/Dad is just not desperate to go down that highway.
“That’ll be a conversation that as a group we’ll have before the draft. But in a perfect world, it would be a better situation, especially for Jack, if he were part of an organization that his Dad wasn’t a part of. There are so many ways in which there would be pressure that comes with that type of situation,” mentioned Kent, whose brother Ryan performed briefly for the B’s within the 1995-96 season. “At the end of the day, I just think it adds, especially in a market like Montreal, a layer of complexity that he doesn’t need at this stage in his life.”
While he wouldn’t thoughts taking part in for Montreal, Jack trusts his father’s judgment. It’s definitely helped him get this far. And apart from, the Black and Gold has not but been flushed out of Jack’s blood.
“I was a Bruin’s fan growing up. I still am a Bruins fan,” mentioned Jack, smiling, “even though I have to root for the Canadiens now.”
When he’s picked and by whom is out of his management. And on the age of 18, it doesn’t a lot matter. The solely factor he can management is his recreation and regularly bettering on it. That a lot, Jack Hughes is aware of. A wholesome perspective might need been the very best benefit of his upbringing.
Source: www.bostonherald.com