A chip on his shoulder: Jack Hughes long offseason transforming his game

One night during the 2019 world junior championships, a group of United States players and their families were hanging out at the team hotel lounge in Victoria, B.C., enjoying some pizza and a rare moment to relax during an often hectic event.

Dave Starman and Craig Button, who were both covering the tournament, were there, too. At one point during the evening, Button found himself engaged in a conversation about his rankings for the upcoming 2019 NHL Draft.

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He was talking to Jack Hughes, the No. 1-ranked player on his list.

“Jack says to Craig, ‘Let’s go through your list again. Where’d you have this guy? Where do you have that guy?’” Starman said. “So Craig would say ‘OK, well, this guy I’ve got ranked fifth.’ And Jack would go, ‘Yeah, I could see that. But I think he’s a little better than this guy because he does this, this and this.’ So he’s going through all these guys, saying, ‘You’ve got him too high or too low,’ and, ‘I see him every day. He does a little bit more of this. This is going to be a part of his game in the future.’

“I never heard a 17-year-old do this before. It was almost like talking to a colleague. And after the conversation, Craig and I looked at each other and said, ‘Now, that was impressive.'”

Hughes was mostly interested where his teammates from the USA Hockey National Team Development Program were ranked. He also had some thoughts about the other players from his experiences playing against them.

“I loved that,” Button recalled. “Anytime you can get a player’s perspective it is something you should pay attention to. I’ve known Jack for so long through his family that it was a comfortable conversation. He’s such an exceptionally bright person, as well as being a bright hockey player. It might have just been about a guy being at 10 instead of 14, but I’m going to listen to what Jack Hughes tells me. I’d be stupid not to.”

That night in Victoria, Hughes was five months from being the first pick in the 2019 draft, just as everyone expected. He was about nine months from making his NHL debut as the first player to ever go straight from the NTDP to the best league in the world, as everyone expected.

One thing he did not know, nor would anyone in that hotel lounge have predicted, was that he was also nine months away from embarking on a frustrating rookie season, filled with team failure he’d never experienced before and a level of organizational turmoil few NHL rookies have ever had to navigate.

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There were a few high notes — his first career NHL goal in a 1-0 win against his brother Quinn, a couple of highlight-reel goals, his first overtime goal in Ottawa — but the losses and lack of production mounted. The general manger who selected him was fired. The coach he shared an NTDP connection with was fired.

“We talked about it a lot,” said Cory Schneider, Hughes’ landlord at the beginning of last season until the goaltender was sent to the AHL. “I was like, ‘Dude, you’ve been through more this year than some guys go through their whole careers.’ It was bad luck, all the changes. An 18-year-old needs stability to feel comfortable and secure in the fact that, ‘OK, if I’m struggling, I know the coach and the GM and the plan.’ But the plan kind of went up in smoke pretty quickly last year.

“He handled it well. He never outwardly complained or showed visible frustration at other guys or anything like that. If anything, I know he was really hard on himself, just wanting to produce and being used to being a two-point-per-game guy. I think that’s what he expected.”

A rookie year unlike any other No. 1 pick had experienced in nearly two decades ended in a way an NHL season hadn’t in a century, when the league shut down in March because of a global pandemic. Hughes, who had been playing hockey practically nonstop for years, suddenly had no games on his calendar.

The time provided Hughes with a unique opportunity. Being the No. 1 pick earns you a lifetime of comparisons to the other players drafted at that spot. Well, no other No. 1 pick has ever had nine healthy months to train and prepare for his sophomore campaign.

When the Devils open the season Thursday night against the Bruins, a different Jack Hughes will take the ice. He’s bigger and stronger, having gained 14 pounds of muscle, and might have a few new tricks in his arsenal for opposing defenses.

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“I’ve played a year in the league already and I’ve seen some things,” Hughes said. “I knew what I needed to work on for the summer. So heading into this year, I’m really confident and I’m excited to get going.”

Brian Galivan has been training professional hockey players for more than a decade in Chicago through his company GVN Performance. Hughes spent a few weeks training with GVN in the summer of 2019 but did most of his offseason work in Toronto, in between trips to the world championships in Slovakia, the NHL combine in Buffalo, the draft in Vancouver and rookie camp in New Jersey.

Galivan moved to Michigan for the 2019-20 season after the NTDP named him its director of sports science. The youngest Hughes brother, Luke, spent his first year at the program working with Galivan and strength coach Will Morlock.

When the longest offseason of their lives began, all three Hughes brothers were working out together at their family home not far from NTDP headquarters in Plymouth, Mich. After the state lifted some of its COVID-19 restrictions, they migrated to USA Hockey Arena, but there was one problem.

“For the majority of the summer, our gym was shut down. I had to build a gym in our parking lot,” Galivan said.

So the Hughes brothers, along with other NTDP alums like Alex Turcotte, Cole Caufield and Cam York, spent five days a week working out on asphalt. They trained for two hours a day. And when the arena reopened, they also began skating three or four times per week.

Hughes arrived every day at 9 a.m. and was there for so long that Galivan made him take a long weekend at one point. This was Hughes’ first extended exposure to serious, pro-level weight training.

“His numbers were just fantastic,” Galivan said. “Jack was like a sponge. It was a lot of fun to watch. Elite players, if they train smart, the stuff they are able to do … those are gifts they were given from God, not me. These guys are just born different. Jack is different. Quinn is different. Patrick Kane is different. I just try to steer them in the right direction and help them have good habits.

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“There were days we were training in the rain — I mean, thunder and lightning and rain. They didn’t miss a day. They never complained, no matter how hot it got out there. It was an awesome experience.”

Hughes said he treated nutrition like it was a job, eating five to six meals a day. On his menu were a lot of eggs, protein shakes, chicken, steak and rice. When Hughes stopped by Schneider’s house before training camp started, the first thing Schneider noticed was that the teenager standing before him was noticeably bigger than the one who had played mini-sticks hockey with his son Wyatt the year before.

“I’m actually really excited to follow him from afar this year and just kind of see how his game has developed,” said Schneider, who has been at Islanders camp on a tryout contract. “But the only way you find out is by playing games. I think he’s a kid who will figure things out really quickly.”

Hughes could have taken more time off. As Galivan put it, talented players like him could just jump rope all summer and still thrive on the ice.

But that’s not Hughes’ style.

“He loves the game. I thought he was very energetic, he can skate all day long,” former Devils coach John Hynes said. “You can see that he has a passion for the game, he has a passion to compete. We knew he was a young player, and he needed some things physically and mentally. The passion for the game, the passion to win and to get better — that was always there. Then it came to a point where, physically and mentally, it’s just a grind. It’s such a grind for a young guy, and you started to see as time went on, there was going to be a little bit of an adaptation for him.”

Hughes’ transformative offseason was not limited to working on his body. He spent more than three months training with Brandon Naurato after CAA agent Matt Williams connected him with the Hughes brothers (their father, Jim Hughes, also works for CAA). Naurato, a player development consultant for the Red Wings, has also worked individually with NHL players such as Dylan Larkin, Zach Werenski, Kyle Connor. This offseason, his group included the Hughes brothers, Werenski, Caufield, Turcotte and Andrew Copp.

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His focus with Jack was pretty singular.

“Almost all on the shot,” Naurato said. “It was a lot of work on his release in general. He’s also so great at carrying the puck through neutral ice and gets a lot of chances off the rush, so just making the reads off defenders’ stick detail and wrists and elbows, and when they’re going to try and poke(check), shooting through screens off the rush and getting into the harder areas.”

First, they went through all of Hughes’ shot attempts from his rookie season. The video sessions were designed to identify what types of scoring chances he was getting and how they could help him capitalize on those situations in the future.

The film confirmed what the advanced numbers already suggested — that Hughes should have scored more goals last season. He shot just 2.4 percent at even strength, which was 250th out of 250 forwards with at least 700 minutes of five-on-five ice time. His individual expected goals of 14.84 was 138th in the league, one place behind Anthony Cirelli and six ahead of Eric Staal. He finished the season with seven goals, tied for 281st along with Cedric Paquette and Frederik Gauthier.

“What we noticed was he’s getting a lot of high-quality chances for the amount of per-60 ice time that he was getting,” Naurato said. “Jack is a student of the game. It was good for me because he’s not just listening to everything I’m saying and then just saying, ‘You’re right.’ He wanted to know why. He wants to see it and be able to explain it in his way. It was good for him and I to go back and forth and for me to understand how he thinks the game. I’d like to think I had an impact on him, but I feel like I learned just as much from him as he did from me.”

The second part of the training was geared toward shooting lots and lots of pucks. Early in the process, Hughes worked on his shot in the family driveway. Eventually, it moved indoors and onto the ice.

“It was more technical at first,” Naurato said. “My big thing is, I don’t want to change guys’ curves just to change it. There’s obviously other areas of his game — with his passing, his stick-handling — so that’s why he uses a certain length, curve, stick, flex, stuff like that. So we tried a couple different curves, even adding a little bit more toe just to get more velocity on the puck and changing the angle. It’s just learning how to use the stick, like where to flex the shaft, getting your elbow up, these little things in those same scenarios that he’s finding himself in.”

Button has been watching Hughes play for years. He had a comparison in mind when talking about what he expects from the 19-year-old this season.

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“When Jack was 14 years old, he played up a year in midget (in Toronto) and he was a really good player,” Button said. “There was talk about him perhaps pursuing exceptional status and entering junior hockey a year earlier. But Jack wasn’t physically mature. … Watching him that year in midget at 14 be a really good player, and then the next year at 15 be just dominant and the best player … I think that’s what you’re going to see with Jack this year in the NHL.”

Not everyone will share Button’s faith this year.

The Devils were considered playoff contenders a year ago after a splashy offseason. This season, it’s tough to find anyone who thinks they will finish any higher than seventh or eighth in a brutal East Division.

Hughes can be a big part of rewriting that narrative. He will start the season at center next to Kyle Palmieri, the Devils’ most consistent goal scorer over the past five seasons. Playing with Palmieri and on the top power-play unit should create opportunities for more offense. With Nico Hischier unavailable because of a lower-body injury, Hughes will take the ice Thursday as New Jersey’s No. 1 center.

First-year coach Lindy Ruff said early in training camp that his philosophy is to meet the opposing team’s strength with strength. If that includes having the No. 1 center face the opponent’s top player at the position, Hughes will be peering across the faceoff circle at Boston’s Patrice Bergeron, one of the most gifted defensive centers in NHL history. Then it will be Mika Zibanejad at Madison Square Garden, Mathew Barzal at Nassau Coliseum and so on in a division that has seven other teams with elite No. 1 centers.

“Jack is such a smart player, and he’s going to know what he needs to work on, what he did easier at lower levels that are now a bit harder,” Button said. “It’s his competitive spirit, his diligence to say, ‘OK, I’ve got to work on this and this.’

“But in my view, you can’t teach some of the things Jack has, in terms of his ability to play at a high rate of speed, to speed up and slow down, to make plays with the vision and the hand skills he has. Watching him over the years, I think Jack will apply the lessons he needs.”

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During at least one of Schneider’s conversations with Hughes last season, he brought up another No. 1 pick in the NHL draft. Schneider grew up in the Boston area and vividly remembers the beginning of Joe Thornton’s career. Thornton had three goals and seven points in 55 games with the Bruins as a rookie. That did not stop him from putting together a no-doubt Hall of Fame career.

“I don’t see any red flags,” Schneider said. “Jack was a kid who was 18 and went through a whirlwind summer, with the worlds and the draft and all that. He’s a skilled, pass-first guy who just needs to figure out how to get bigger and his frame better. The mind and the skills are there. The drive is there. Now, I think as he gets older, he’ll find those areas, like, ‘OK, if I can shoot the puck better and be more of a scoring threat, that will keep guys honest and open up my passing game, which is my bread and butter.’ He’s smart enough to figure it out.”

That process began with shooting pucks in the driveway with his brothers and Naurato, and then included lifting weights and pushing through grueling workouts five days a week with Galivan and Morlock.

Now, Hughes will start to put it all together.

“I’m optimistic. I feel like he’s an elite player and a super competitive kid,” Naurato said. “I think it’s safe to say that he didn’t have the year he wanted to. I think he’s got a little bit of a chip on his shoulder. He’s put the work in and he’s ready to not prove people wrong, but prove to people that he is what everyone thinks he is.”

(Top photo: Rich Graessle / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

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