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Greg Wyshynski, ESPN
NEWARK, N.J. — Hockey world domination wasn’t something the Hughes brothers discussed all that much while growing up.
“You don’t even talk about it. You’re in the basement playing mini-sticks and it’s inconceivable,” Jack Hughes of the New Jersey Devils said. “To get one kid into the NHL is really hard. To get three kids into the NHL as teenagers? It’s crazy.”
But as the 2023-24 season begins, the Hughes brotherhood is set to take over the NHL.
Defenseman Quinn Hughes, 23, enters his sixth season after scoring at nearly a point-per-game pace in 2022-23, having been named the new captain of the Vancouver Canucks last month. Jack Hughes, 22, posted 99 points last season and led the Devils to their first postseason series win since 2012. Jack’s sibling teammate Luke Hughes, 20, made his NHL debut during that Devils playoff run and is poised to play a key role as a puck-moving defenseman during his rookie season.
“You knew the day was coming when Luke got drafted, but now it’s here,” Jack said. “If someone told us this would happen when we were kids, we’d never believe them. This is definitely a dream come true.”
“It’s pretty surreal that I get to play with my brother,” Jack added. “It should be a blast.”
His enthusiasm was evident from the moment the Devils drafted Luke in 2021. New Jersey had the fourth overall pick. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the NHL draft was held remotely, which meant the Hughes family could gather together to watch the selections.
When Devils GM Tom Fitzgerald read out “Luke Hughes” as their pick, Jack jumped off the couch and hugged his brother, his body literally vibrating with excitement.
Luke didn’t see that viral clip until after the draft.
“We were really excited, just because of the odds. So much had to happen that we got picked to the same team,” Luke said. “I think it’s a dedication to our parents. How hard they worked to raise us and how much they pushed us to get here.”
The Hughes brothers pushed each other to get to this level, too. Their fierce competitions have long been a part of their origin story.
“Ping-pong gets crazy. We play pickup basketball and it’s rough,” Jack said. “We had a pool table at my house this year. And we had rankings with 25 guys and 350 games. We kept note of every game. It’s just a competitive house. That’s what happens when you have three boys all within the same age.”
Minnesota Wild forward Matt Boldy, a friend of the Hughes family, thinks that environment helped Quinn and Jack find early NHL success.
“I think both of them are super competitive. They just want to be the guys that have a puck on their stick. The ones that make plays. I think that goes a long way,” he said. “And obviously, they’ve got unbelievable skill.”
Now it’s Luke Hughes that enters the NHL with the skill, confidence and competitiveness that helped define his older brothers.
“He has everything to become a top, elite defenseman,” Devils defender Jonas Siegenthaler said.
“You can’t teach what he does,” Quinnipiac men’s hockey coach Rand Pecknold told ESPN back in April, when his Bobcats faced Luke’s Michigan Wolverines in the Frozen Four. “As good a player as he is, I think he’s a better person. He’s a phenomenal athlete, a phenomenal person and he’s got that elusiveness you can’t teach.”
WHILE JACK CAME THROUGH the U.S. National Development Team program before the Devils selected him first overall in 2019, both Quinn and Luke played for Michigan before reaching the NHL — Quinn for one season, and Luke for two seasons from 2021 to ’23.
Luke signed with the Devils after Quinnipiac eliminated the Wolverines in the Frozen Four semifinals, ending the NCAA championship aspirations for Luke and Adam Fantilli, who was selected third overall by the Columbus Blue Jackets in June.
Luke Hughes played two regular-season games, notching a goal and an assist, and then saw three games of playoff action during the Devils’ two-round run. He energized them during an 8-4 rout of the Carolina Hurricanes in Game 3, skating with blazing speed while picking up two assists.
“That’s young legs for you, right?” he joked.
While he was a minus-3 in Game 4 (a 6-1 loss), Luke Hughes played a strong 25:02 in Game 5 before the Devils lost in overtime and were eliminated from the postseason.
Quinn Hughes couldn’t quite process that Luke had reached the NHL while watching the Devils’ postseason run.
“It was crazy to see him out there. I mean, he’s my youngest brother,” he said with a laugh. “I thought he did great. I thought he did amazing.”
Siegenthaler was also impressed.
“There’s only positives I can say about his style of game, about his character. He’s young, he’s funny. He makes us a little younger, which is good,” the 26-year-old said. “I think the future is really bright for him.”
After the postseason, Devils coach Lindy Ruff and Luke Hughes discussed his preparation for the 2023-24 season, a campaign in which it was expected he could play a vital role as a rookie.
“It’s about getting stronger, about understanding the puck management side of the game and knowing that it’s not an easy position for a young player,” Ruff said. “It’s about your details. You have to play well defensively. There will be some great highs. And there’s some plays that you go, ‘That’s a young defenseman making those plays.’ So there’s so much to really look forward to, but yet there’s a lot of work ahead.”
Luke understands that learning curve for a young defenseman — as he noted, with a little bit of that Hughes-ian confidence.
“I think my offensive game speaks for itself,” he said. “I’m just trying to tune in the defensive things, little details. Boxing out, breakouts. Just fine-tuning that stuff and getting the puck to our skill forwards.”
Siegenthaler remembered breaking into the league as a young defenseman with the Washington Capitals in 2018-19, and what his biggest challenge was a rookie.
“Just being consistent. I think as a defenseman that’s one of the most important things,” he said. “You can’t have too many up and downs. I feel like if you just stay consistent, you’re one of the top defensemen. Not a lot of guys have that.”
While he strives for consistency, Luke Hughes is also hoping for incremental improvement in his game.
“The only goal I have is get better every day and really push myself,” he said. “It’s my first year. I got a good little taste of the playoffs. So I think I’m really excited for the season, trying to stay healthy and do what I can to help this team win.”
What could help the Devils win even more this season — they went 52-22-8 last season, a 49-point improvement in the standings year over year — is unleashing Luke Hughes offensively.
SCOUTS HAVE DESCRIBED Luke Hughes as an extraordinarily gifted offensive player. He scored at nearly a point-per-game pace in college. He’s a skater who can incite gasps from the fans with an open-ice move.
“He beats people one-on-one at the offensive blue line,” Michigan coach Brandon Naurato told ESPN earlier this year. “A lot of coaches wouldn’t like this kind of stuff. With these young prospects, it’s like, ‘Ah, it works in college, but will it work in the NHL?’ Talking to both Quinn and Zach [Werenski, another Michigan alum] about Luke, I think they believe it’s going to work at the NHL level.”
Luke Hughes has the offensive skill set to make an impact on the scoreboard in his rookie season. Like Moritz Seider did for the Detroit Red Wings. Like Cale Makar did for the Colorado Avalanche. Like Quinn Hughes did for the Canucks.
“Me and Luke are definitely very similar,” Quinn said. “I mean, he’s smart and he’s kinda like me. Just a little bit bigger and better.”
The trick for Ruff and the Devils is figuring out how much free reign they can give Luke Hughes while he learns how to defend at an NHL level. How often does one give a 20-year-old rookie the green light to create offensively when considering the potential hazards on the other end of the ice?
“Well, I think there’s a fence out there that you try to stay within,” Ruff said. “Sometimes that’s an electric fence and it bounces you back in. The electric fence is probably the coach if you hit that wire.
“But we know what he can bring. There’s creativity that he understands. He can create. We’ve seen it and we allow that. But also inside of a game, there’s the puck management part where if you’re winning a game, you have to understand when to have risk and not have risk in your game.”
These were the types of lessons that Jack Hughes had to learn during his first four seasons with the Devils, before becoming a dominant center in all zones.
“It’s nice that I got myself to become the player I want to be. But now the question has become, ‘How do the Devils become the Stanley Cup-winning team?'” Jack said. “We got all the makings of one and now we gotta put the work in. We gotta earn it. Really challenge ourselves this year and be ready to go.”
Jack Hughes has taken on plenty of roles with the Devils: top scorer, vocal leader, face of the franchise. Add another one to the list this season: roommate to the team’s top rookie. Luke Hughes has moved into Jack’s apartment.
“I live with him. I spend most of the day with him,” Luke said.
He said bunking with Jack now is a bit different than when they grew up together. A lot more Netflix. A lot more cooking.
“He cooks a lot, but I help out. I’m more of a sous chef guy myself,” Luke said.
As Jack said, it’s all a bit surreal. Three brothers, separated by only a few years, all making an impact in the NHL. All those hours battling on the ice, on the court and in the rec room against each other helped shaped them into professionals — and in the process, the NHL’s next great hockey family.
“When Luke does something great, me and Quinn are so happy for him,” Jack said. “It’s the same with all three of us.
“Inside the four walls at our house, it’s really competitive. But once we get out in the big, bad world, you know, we’re one family. We’re genuinely each other’s biggest fans.”