HENDERSON, NV — His shoulder recently repaired by season-ending surgery and his arm in a sling, Jack Hughes plopped himself on the couch this past April and binge-watched the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
The New Jersey Devils star would fire up two TVs at once so he could catch the end of the Eastern Conference tilts and not miss a second of older brother Quinn’s shifts in Vancouver.
“I was mostly watching Canucks,” Jack told Elliotte Friedman and Kyle Bukauskas Tuesday during a recording of their 32 Thoughts podcast.
“The playoffs are the best. That’s why you want to get back to ’em. When you’re on the couch watching, you feel like a loser. You want to be in the mix.”
But after Quinn’s Canucks knocked off the Nashville Predators in a low-scoring first round — “just lock-it-down playoff hockey,” Jack enthuses — simply watching in 4K wasn’t enough.
Jack never forgot Quinn’s effort to fly to New York attend Jacks’ playoff games against the Rangers in the 2023 post-season and wanted to return the favour. Show his support.
So, Jack and his fragile shoulder made plans to jet to YVR for games 1 and 2 of the Edmonton series and cheer on the Canucks in-person, a la Brady Tkachuk representing big bro Matthew.
Alas, there was a snag.
“Bro, I can’t find my passport,” Jack told Quinn over the phone, prior to Round 2.
A disappointed Quinn didn’t want to make his brother feel guilty for forgetting his passport in New Jersey while he rehabbed in Michigan.
Plus, he had their mom in town to cheer him on.
Following the morning skate of Game 7 of the Canucks-Oilers series, Ellen Weinberg-Hughes asked Quinn to bring home some extra pasta for lunch.
Quinn found that strange. Mom had never requested pasta in the five years he’d been a Canuck.
When Quinn returned home with lunch and prepared for the most important game-day nap of his career, Ellen told him she had to go downstairs and fetch a coffee order.
She returned with Jack, who’d arranged to have his passport shipped in time for him to fly out for Game 7.
“I was shocked. I couldn’t believe it. Obviously, the pasta was for him,” Quinn chuckled. “I didn’t want to go for my nap. I just wanted to stay up and shoot it.”
Of course, the Canucks lost a 3-2 heartbreaker to the eventual Western Conference champions. But Quinn was grateful to have his brother there for him postgame.
Jack assures his shoulder is now fully recovered (enough to beat Quinn heads-up in the family golf contest), and both brothers expressed their hunger to return to the playoffs.
At the same time, for the first time.
Jack admits that his Devils took a “step back” from ’23. Defensively, they were looser. Gave up too many chances.
“We weren’t a hard team to play against,” said Jack, encouraged by the Devils’ off-season injection of talent and the arrival of coach Sheldon Keefe.
“You know, you get a taste of the playoffs, you win a series, and you think you’re going to be in the playoffs every year. It doesn’t work like that. It’s hard to get back to the playoffs.”
Heck, sometimes it’s hard just to attend the playoffs.