EDMONTON – When the 2022 World Junior Championship originally began, Luke Hughes looked like a lost puppy at times.
USA played just one game, a. But Hughes struggled, and simply didn’t look comfortable.
Fast forward eight months, and he finished his college freshman season, played heavy minutes with the United States’ World Championship team and, heck, if he wanted to go play pro with the New Jersey Devils, nobody would blame him.
Now, he’s one of the best players at the world juniors, the redo edition.
Hughes is up to five points in two games already, which is more than his brother Jack got in four games in. With Jake Sanderson electing to focus on the NHL season with Ottawa, the Americans turned the No. 1 defenseman reins over to Hughes, the third brother to play in this tournament. In Game 1, he looked controlled, poised and mature, rarely making a mistake moving the puck and doing a fantastic job of manning the top power-play unit.
When talking to the media post-game, even Hughes got tripped up over the timeline between the original 2022 tournament and where we are now. Eight months. Not a year, not two years. Eight months. But in those eight months, Hughes has taken big strides in his development.
“I think I’ve grown a lot as a person, grown in confidence,” Hughes said. “I’ve really learned my body and how to use it to help my game. It’s just focusing on getting better every day, growing my skills.”
In his first season at Michigan, Hughes had 39 points in 41 games, leading all freshmen and defensemen in scoring and finishing as a finalist for the prestigious Hobey Baker Award — something typically reserved for the best older players in the NCAA. So for him to be that good so quickly in his career truly is special. He spent the season playing with players like Owen Power, Jacob Truscott, Ethan Edwards and Nick Blankenburg on a stacked blueline. Hughes said playing against like Hughes and Matty Beniers at practice every day pushed his game to new levels, and it showed when he made his debut against pros at the 2022 World Hockey Championship.
Hughes was a big part of USA’s fourth-place finish in Finland, featuring one of the youngest teams with a lack of experience on the world stage. The United States played well and nearly made the final with a solid effort against Finland.
Hughes averaged 19:14 in ice time, a nice chunk for the youngster. That was boosted due to the Americans using four defensemen for most of…
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