Healthy habits help Canucks' Quinn Hughes reach new heights

VANCOUVER — Starving for success, Quinn Hughes changed what he eats.

After a visit last summer to a Denver doctor who specializes in nutrition, Hughes stopped consuming alcohol during hockey season, eliminated grains and reduced other sources of gluten from his diet, avoided processed foods and tried to eat natural foods. Any beef he ate was grass-fed.

Hughes ate more meals and fewer snacks. Pretzels had been a favourite.

The Vancouver Canucks captain didn’t talk about his diet at all during the National Hockey League season, and he isn’t willing to talk much about it now. Claiming his diet does not have a name and isn’t as simple as gluten-free, Hughes explained he simply wanted to improve his body to better withstand the rigours of the NHL season.

He played all 95 regular-season and playoff games for the Canucks.

“I was just so disappointed how the last couple of seasons had ended from a team perspective,” he told Sportsnet in a telephone interview from his home in Michigan. “It was nothing crazy, but I learned a lot about my body. It’s not necessarily the most fun thing to do. But if you're trying to be one of the best in the league, I think that's something that you have to do — the sacrifice I wouldn't have anticipated when I was 19 or 20.”

Now 24, Hughes played so well this season that the defenceman should become the Canucks franchise’s first Norris Trophy winner when the NHL hands out the last of its individual awards Thursday in Las Vegas ahead of the draft that begins the next night.

Hughes is a first-time Norris finalist, up against 2022 winner Cale Makar and 2020 recipient Roman Josi. But no NHL defenceman was better this season than Hughes.

His 92 points led all blue-liners and only six defencemen in league history have had more assists in one season than the 75 helpers Hughes accrued. He was also plus-38, and on the ice for 57.2 per cent of Canucks shot attempts and 57.7 per cent of scoring chances. Vancouver outscored opponents 92-55 with Hughes at five-on-five. And the five-foot-10 American did all this as a first-year captain amid the searing glare of a Canadian market. The Canucks won the Pacific Division with 109 points and pushed the Stanley Cup runner-up Edmonton Oilers to Game 7 of the playoffs’ second round.

"When I got here, he said, 'I'm tired of losing. What have we got to do?'" Canucks coach Rick Tocchet told Sportsnet. "When a guy says that... that was our first conversation. 'I'm tired of losing and we've got to get trust back in this room.' And he delivered. He'll even tell you he wants to be a better captain next year. That's the maturation of a star player.

“I knew he had changed his diet. He was telling our chef, 'I want this, I want that.' Huggy is into anything that will give him an edge. He’s always looking for an edge. He made those changes. He even stepped up his recuperation program after games. Maybe two years ago, he put his suit on and took off; that’s what young kids do. But now he’s got to spend 10 minutes in the weight room, and get a deep stretch, massage. That’s great for the organization because all of a sudden other young guys come in — (Nils) Hoglander and (Vasily) Podkolzin — and see their captain doing this and think they better do it, too."

Tocchet last month was named the Jack Adams Award winner as NHL coach of the year. Canucks star Elias Pettersson was runnerup to Jacob Slavin for the Lady Byng, and Vancouver goalie Thatcher Demko is a finalist with Connor Hellebuyck and Sergei Bobrovsky for the Vezina Trophy to be handed out Thursday.

The NHL will also announce winners for the Hart Trophy, Ted Lindsay Award and Calder Trophy.

“I think over the course of the last three, four years, I've developed,” Hughes said. “I think after my second year, I was really upset with... just hearing about how I wasn't good enough defensively or that I wasn't a true No. 1 (defenceman). I can remember all the people that said that.

“I'm not trying to prove them wrong but, you know, it's not easy hearing those things. For me, it was always internal to see how good I can personally get. But I did want to be better and... I'm proud of that.”

“Quinn is as driven as anybody,” Canucks president Jim Rutherford said. “It's about being the best at what he does at his position on the ice. But he's also driven by team success, and that's part of the reason that he is the team captain. Team success is just as important to him as individual success. When I got here, he was already a terrific player, so it's not like he had to do a lot of work to put himself into a role of being a No. 1 defenceman. But his game has matured into an all-round game, playing a lot of minutes every game and being a dominant player. He has matured into a special player and leader.”

Although Hughes won’t talk much about his diet, he does talk about his peers in what has become a brilliant era for young, dynamic defencemen in the NHL.

He was second to the Colorado Avalanche's Makar, 25, in Calder Trophy balloting by the Professional Hockey Writers Association when the defencemen were rookies in 2019-20.

The New York Rangers' Adam Fox, 26, won the Norris Trophy in 2021. The wave of elite, young defencemen includes the Boston Bruins' Charlie McAvoy, 26, and 24-year-olds Miro Heiskanen of the Dallas Stars, Rasmus Dahlin of the Buffalo Sabres, and Evan Bouchard of Edmonton.

Thursday finalists for the Calder Trophy include 21-year-old defenceman Brock Faber of the Minnesota Wild and 20-year-old Luke Hughes, Quinn’s youngest brother, of the New Jersey Devils. They will be runners-up to Chicago Blackhawks star Connor Bedard of North Vancouver.

“Yeah, I think that definitely drives me,” Quinn Hughes said of his peer group. “I mean, I want to be up there with those guys. Looking at Makar having a Norris and Fox having a Norris, being the same age as those guys, I wanted to try to drive my game where I could possibly be in that category. I have great respect for all those guys. They are tremendous players and... it pushed me. But I've also pushed myself. I hope I can be fortunate enough to win, but in saying that, there's so many great defencemen in the league that I truly feel humbled to be up there.”

Asked the most important thing he has learned since making his debut for the Canucks as a 19-year-old straight out of the University of Michigan, Hughes said: “I just think about how hard it is. (The NHL) is incredibly hard. You have to work on your mental game, you have to work on your body, you have to work on your mindset heading into games, you have to work on different skills each season that you can build upon. I truly think that it's a body of work. I just think about how much better I've gone from age 20 to now. Hopefully from 24 to 28, I can continue on that path.”