World
Canucks’ Quinn Hughes missing Team USA
Vancouver to Boston?
Quinn Hughes would fly to the moon to play for his country. He has already been to hell and back for the Vancouver Canucks this season.
But Vancouver-Boston-Las Vegas, in a span of 48 hours, just to be on standby for Team USA and very likely watch from a back room in Beantown when Canada plays the U.S. on Thursday night in the 4 Nations Face-Off final, well, that’s a lot to ask of the Canucks captain who is also working his way back from the most serious injury of his professional career.
“The league’s done a great job putting this event together,” Hughes told reporters on Tuesday after practising with the Canucks in Vancouver. “It’s been fun to watch — hard for me to watch. But, you know, I’m close with a lot of those USA guys, and proud of how they’ve been playing. The six (defencemen) that have been there — of course, I want to play — but they’ve gotten us to the point where we’re in a championship game now, and those guys also deserve to play. But in saying that, it’s obviously been hard for me. I’m a competitor and, you know, feel like I want to play and need to be there.”
But “the rules are the rules; I can’t play unless anyone else gets injured. And obviously, I don’t want to see anyone get injured. So, yeah, I think that’s where we’re at.”
Even without injured/infected defenceman Charlie McAvoy, the Americans still have six healthy blue-liners, including Jake Sanderson, who was named nine days ago as Hughes’ replacement on the U.S. roster.
The decision not to play in the first best-on-best senior international tournament of his career was excruciating for Hughes, the 25-year-old from Michigan who won the Norris Trophy last season but missed the final four games before the National Hockey League schedule break due to an undisclosed injury suffered Jan. 31 in Dallas.
Hughes’ practice on Tuesday at Rogers Arena, in a red non-contact jersey, was not only his first one back with the team but also just the defenceman’s third time on skates since his injury. He attempted to skate a week ago Sunday before informing Team USA general manager Bill Guerin that he would be unable to play in the tournament with his brother, Jack, and a pile of Quinn’s American-born friends, including the Tkachuk brothers, Brady and Matthew.
“Really, what it came down to is I just wasn’t healthy enough,” Hughes explained for the first time. “I wasn’t sure (whether the injury) could get worse, and I felt like I couldn’t be crawling back to Vancouver at the end of that tournament where now I’m missing more Canucks games.
“If there’s a positive, I should be ready to go next game against Vegas (on Saturday). But in saying that, you know, if I didn’t have to worry about any of that other stuff, I would have been there in a second and playing with what I’ve got. But I had to look at the big picture a little bit.
“I kind of grew up with, you know, a lot of those guys with the (U.S. development) program and world championships and different things, and we’re all interconnected. I’ve known a lot of these guys, and it’s really hard to not be there with them.”
Hughes’ Canuck teammates are elated to be with him.
“We talked a lot about it and, yeah, it was a hard decision for sure,” Canucks winger Conor Garland said of his close friend. “It sucked, obviously. I wanted him to go and do what he could do. But it’s an extremely unselfish decision, you know?
“He could have gone and grinded it out, but then maybe not been at his best the rest of the way for us. He had to make a tough decision. The only thing I said to him was, ‘Whatever decision you make is the right one. It’s your decision. You’re a good person . . . and whatever you do is going to be the right move.’ It wasn’t easy for him.”
Hughes’ agent, Pat Brisson, told Sportsnet after Hughes decided to withdraw from Team USA that the Canucks’ first 55 games were “heavy” for the captain who felt responsible for the turmoil that engulfed the team much of the winter.
“At this point, he just needs to put more gas back in the tank,” Brisson said.
Garland said Tuesday: “It’s hard to get into, but I think he was more someone who just knew when we needed to have a win . . . and if he slipped even a little bit, he wore it heavily. He’d be very upset on the bus or in the hotel, and you knew he was going to play phenomenal the next game. But, yeah, he’s dealt with a lot this year. He’s dealt with a lot. I’m happy he got a little bit of a break and he’ll be ready to go when we get back.”
Going 3-0-1 since the night Hughes was injured, hours after the J.T. Miller trade, the Canucks open a five-game road trip Saturday against the Golden Knights.
Hughes said he felt good in Tuesday’s practice and expects to be able to play on Saturday, although he doesn’t think he will fully refresh mentally until after the season.
“Some of the things that we battled through as a team, I feel like we’re coming out on the other side of it,” he said. “And I think we’re a pretty resilient group at this moment.
“I feel like I’ve been really hungry all year, and I know my game’s in a really good spot. I want to just keep going and push myself.
“For me, I (have been) just trying to be the best I could be every night, and just try to bring my best for our group and be a calming presence and someone that guys can look at and know that, you know, I’m going to fight for them tonight and be ready to go and they don’t have to worry about me. And I felt like we had a lot of guys in here that did that. A lot of competitors in here. I keep saying it, but 27 games left and I’m really excited.”
Despite a critical mass of drama and key absences, the Canucks hold the final wild-card playoff spot in the Western Conference, two points behind the Los Angeles Kings and five adrift of the Colorado Avalanche.
ICE CHIPS
Vancouver head coach Rick Tocchet (Team Canada), centre Elias Pettersson (Sweden) and goalie Kevin Lankinen (Finland) are expected to reunite with the Canucks for Friday’s practice in Las Vegas. . . Lankinen, who started Finland’s final two games at the 4 Nations, will need this week to rest. Canucks assistant coach Adam Foote, who ran Tuesday’s practice, confirmed that injured starting goalie Thatcher Demko is not expected on the upcoming road trip, which includes a pair of back-to-back games. Arturs Silovs has been recalled from the AHL to back up Lankinen.