'Top of our games': Canucks' Hughes ready to build on individual, team success

VANCOUVER — The elite training group that Quinn Hughes’ dad, Jim, runs each summer just outside Detroit has become so popular that last month there was a second, expanded camp to accommodate the additional skaters who wanted to tune up for the National Hockey League season.

The newbies at the U.S. National Team Development Program complex in Plymouth, Mich., included Nashville Predators captain Roman Josi, one of the top defencemen of his generation and the runner-up to Hughes last spring in balloting for the Norris Trophy. 

Josi, whose NHL team was beaten by Hughes’ Vancouver Canucks in the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs last spring, has been a Norris finalist three times in five years but had one of his poorest seasons after winning the award as hockey’s top defenceman in 2020.

Josi’s inclusion at the camp meant fewer puck touches but more knowledge for Hughes.

“I did take away some things from him that I’m going to keep to myself,” Hughes told Sportsnet Friday during a phone call from Michigan. “But I will say one thing Josi told me. He won his first Norris and he said, 'I've got to win another one.' And then he didn’t have a great year. And the year after that he had a crazy year (and finished second to Cale Makar in 2022 Norris voting).

“I think his point was, you've just got to continue to be yourself. You don't have to push the envelope too, too hard. And I completely agree with that. Less is more sometimes. You've got to listen to your body, listen to your mind. I took nine weeks off because I do think less is more. But when I train, I do everything with a purpose. I'm very purposeful.

“Winning the Norris, it obviously does change your perspective on yourself a little bit. After it sinks in, it's like, wow, that’s pretty cool. But right now, it's like I didn't win the Norris because it's a new year. It's next year. It's always next year. I think that there's more I can get through. If I get 80 points or 85 or 95 or whatever it is, I do think my game will be better this year.”

Hughes also believes the 50-win, 109-point Canucks will be better. 

The 24-year-old captain said the Canucks won’t repeat the mistakes made when the organization collapsed in 2021 after what appeared to be a breakthrough playoff performance in the Edmonton bubble. 

In a wide-ranging interview, Hughes acknowledged the importance of the Canuck power play connecting the way coach Rick Tocchet wants, said he thinks he can become a 20-goal scorer and didn’t downplay the idea of reaching 100 points — a threshold only one NHL defenceman (Erik Karlsson) has reached in the last three decades.

In his Norris Trophy season, Hughes had 17 goals and 92 points while playing all 82 games, finished plus-38 and had a 57 per cent share of shot attempts and 63 per cent of five-on-five goals.

But. . .

“I felt like I missed a lot of scoring opportunities last year,” he said. “And even though my goal-scoring spiked, I think it can spike again. This whole summer, I worked on goal scoring — goal scoring from the dot, goal scoring from the top of the circles. So I think I can score more. I think that I can score 20 goals. As far as the other thing (100 points), I'm not sure. For me, I'm going to try to be aggressive every single night and push the pace, push my game, and then wherever that takes me, it takes me.”

In five years in the NHL, Hughes’ game has taken him from one-dimensional wonderkid — an incredibly agile skater who could pass the puck — to a well-rounded superstar who controls and impacts the game more than all but a half-dozen players on the planet.

Hughes couldn’t defend — until he proved he could. He couldn’t finish, then scored 17 times last season. Yeah, but he was no Makar or Josi or Adam Fox, and then he won the Norris. Really, all Quinn Hughes has to do now is win.

“I think we'll be better,” Hughes said of the 2024-25 Canucks. “We added a lot of depth up front. We added some guys like Jake DeBrusk that can really play and maybe contribute on the power play. I was pretty vocal with Patrik (Allvin, the Canuck general manager) about the (Kiefer) Sherwood add. Just playing him in the playoffs against Nashville and seeing his competitiveness and what he brings, you need guys like that on a championship team.

“I think that was a tremendous add, and then (Danton) Heinen and (Derek) Forbort and the other guys. Daniel Sprong can really score. I think that we added depth, we added goal scoring. I think we probably learned a lot last year, too, and we're just continuing to move up the mountain.”

Of course, the Canucks looked to be on their way up Everest four years ago after qualifying for the pandemic playoffs, then winning two rounds in the fan-less bubble. But despite the emergence of Hughes and Elias Pettersson and Thatcher Demko and J.T. Miller 2.0, the team slipped into a crevasse and stayed lost in the snow until last season when Tocchet led them back to the Stanley Cup tournament.

“When that did happen before, we were an up-and-coming young team,” Hughes said. “Now, I'm going to be 25. Petey's going to be 26, Demko 29. Millsy is 32, Brock (Boeser) is older. We've got (Filip) Hronek and DeBrusk, some other younger guys and some depth pieces. I'm five times the player that I was that season. I think I’ve arrived as a player, and Petey has and all these guys have. I think we're at the top of our games. And then we’ve got an amazing coaching staff and our systems are going to be so dialled in. And I think we're just more mature (because) we went through all that. We learned from that. We should be a really good team.”

HONOURING JOHNNY

Hughes was a teammate of Johnny Gaudreau with Team USA at the 2018 and 2019 world championships. As one of three Hughes brothers in the NHL, Quinn said he was devastated for the Gaudreau family when Johnny and his brother, Matthew, were killed last week by a suspected drunk driver.

Hughes loves the idea of the NHL renaming the Lady Byng Trophy in honour of Johnny Gaudreau.

“It's just crazy because a guy like John, he was just so, he was so energetic,” Hughes said. “You know, he just had this vibe, where, like, everyone in the room could feel it. It just doesn't seem real that this could happen.

“I think that definitely our league can find ways to honour Johnny and his memory. There's a lot of smart people in the league, and there's a lot of great people in the world of hockey, and that’s what makes the NHL so special. They'll act accordingly.”

Hughes returns to Vancouver from Michigan this weekend and will participate Monday in the Canucks’ annual Jake Milford golf tournament before travelling to Las Vegas at the NHL’s request for the league’s annual pre-season media summit next week. Canuck training camp opens Sept. 19 in Penticton.