The Hockey PDOcast - Breaking Down the Details in Jack Hughes’ Game

Episode Date: October 10, 2023

Dimitri Filipovic is joined by Darryl Belfry to take a closer look at the leap Jack Hughes made last season, how much his game has evolved, and why he's so difficult to handle defensively.This podcast is produced by Dominic Sramaty.The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate If you'd like to gain access to the two extra shows we're doing each week this season, you can subscribe to our Patreon page here: www.patreon.com/thehockeypdocast/membership If you'd like to participate in the conversation and join the community we're building over on Discord, you can do so by signing up for the Hockey PDOcast's server here: https://discord.gg/a2QGRpJc84 The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate.

Progressing to the mean since 2015. It's the Hockey Pediocast with your host, Dmitri Filipovich. Welcome to the Hockey Pediocast. My name is Dmitri Pilpovich, and joining me. He's my good buddy, Daryl, Belfare. What's going on? It's been a while. It has been too long.

I'm really excited to be back. So it's a start of a new year, and we're going to try to take advantage of that blank canvas that we have in front of us here by, you know, trying some new stuff, playing around some different concepts for stuff we can do in the show. try to have some fun. And I thought it would be a cool idea to have you on to start the year, not only to catch up, but to specifically dig into some video. I wanted to pick a handful of

the players that I find to be the most interesting players in today's game and kind of just like watch their tape, talk about what they do, how they do it, why they're so effective. And that's obviously a shared passion, I think, between you and I. And I thought that the best person to start that project with here would be Jack Hughes because not only he's a mesmerizing talent who just dazzles us with all sorts of tricks that he keeps kind of layering and adding to his game, but it feels like no player maybe in the league took a bigger step from one year to the next than he did last year. And so as we get into this new season, I thought it would be good to kind of reflect on what he did last year and kind of how he did it. Yeah, I'm pretty familiar with him.

so I think I can talk on a pretty educated way on some of the things that I know he's been doing and why he was able to break out as well as he did. I mean, he was last year, to recap, he was seventh in the league and five-on-five points. He was eighth in goals. He was 15th in primary assist. And most importantly, I think he was a central figure in not only the jump that he made, but the jump that the devil's made in as an organization where they won 52 games, They finished third in the league, I believe, with 112 points.

And, you know, it was kind of, he's the perfect embodiment of them as a team, I think, because he turned all of this talent and potential that he'd shown flashes of into immediate results and did it in an entertaining way too. And so, I don't know, as we get into this conversation, we're going to highlight various things that are sort of core tenants of his game, I guess. But I think that the natural starting point for us here is focusing on his shot and how much that improved in the strides he made there because when he came into the league, even in his rookie year, he didn't put up a lot of points. He got a lot of opportunities, but it almost became

a bit of a joke on the internet, right, where there'd be all these clips of him shooting and falling and almost kind of like looking like he was getting blown over by the wind that he'd get all these opportunities scoring chances, but wouldn't be able to capitalize on them. And it would just be feeble attempts from those, from those dangerous areas. And so he turned that from a liability, I think, into a legitimate weapon in his arsenal and I'm kind of curious into getting into the intricacies of how that evolution happened in this game. Yeah, like it started well before last year. Like it's it's not like you just have like one off season or one time during the year and then all of a sudden, you know, you go from not being able to to shoot at a 40 goal NHL rate to all

the sudden being able to do that even though the even though the transfer is in one year the work is done in the previous pre previous seasons so in my experience with working with players like this it takes a couple off seasons to get there and that's exactly the same trajectory that it was with with jack and the biggest thing is is to learn how to shoot easy that's the biggest uh i think the biggest thing for a lot of players, especially when you get to the NHL, the time to be able to shoot is so much more compressed. The amount of traffic that you typically have to shoot through is a lot less. And if you don't shoot through traffic, the odds of the goalie being squared to the puck is going to be, you pretty much have to count on it. The goalie is going

to be square. So now what are you going to do? And so the tendency for a lot of players is I either take too much time in trying to be perfect because they realize the conditions that surround a shot in the NHL is very difficult. So they take too much time to try to set that shot up or in or they try to shoot it too hard. And they're they're like trying to power it through. And so in my, the phrase I like to use is try to shoot easy. And the way and the way you shoot easy is that it has to have a fluidity to it. So you're generating power from more than just your upper body. You have to utilize your lower body.

So in order to do that, you're separating your upper body from your lower body. And I think over the last couple of years, that's what we've seen Jack do most effectively, is he now separates his upper body from his lower body. And then he can now tap into his wonderful skating and utilize that. his shot, allowing him to shoot a lot more fluid, a lot easier. And I think that that's been one of the biggest differences in why he was much more effective. Well, and that evolution has been really profound, interestingly enough, from both a quantity

and a quality perspective, or I should say from a volume and an efficiency perspective, right? Because if you look basically each year, he's been in the league for four years now, he starts off pretty low, you know, amount of attempts per game. He's kind of profiling as more of a playmaker. And that's certainly what I thought that his proclivities would be heavily slanted towards. And he wasn't scoring at all on the shots he was getting essentially in his first two seasons. And then in years three and four, and year three was abbreviated by injury two years ago, not only has he become sort of above league average in terms of the efficiency in terms of the number

of shots he's scoring on, but also his volumes gone up. And I think that's kind of like an interesting sort of maybe chicken and the egg relationship because certainly he's become more dominant in other facets of the game and so he has the puck on a stick more often. His puck touches have gone up as well. But maybe just because of the fact that it is now a weapon he's wielding in his arsenal, he's also using it a lot more as well, right? So we're seeing that volume go up and that's how you get him scoring 43 goals or whatever he did last year. And while he's still going to rack up the assist, I wouldn't be surprised at all to see him flirt with if not smash past 50 goals this year, which I have to admit, I was really high on him.

He had to coming into his NHO career. I didn't necessarily think that was within his range of outcomes, but that looks like that's the player he's kind of tracking towards being. Yeah. And to your point earlier about his shot volume, when you believe more in your shot, you will shoot it more. And you'll look for more situations to create conditions for yourself to shoot. He will also view himself as a, as the best.

option available where previously he may not have. If you don't have confidence in your shot, you don't feel like it's, it's at a level where you're going to score. You're going to second guess it. So now he's going to more utilize trying to make plays off the pass. And so the trick to me is, is like there's very few guys in the last 15 years who've been able to get over 100 points without scoring 40. it's very difficult to do so if you want to be a great playmaker which jack has like to your point at all those proclivities going in he's a great

unbelievable vision great imagination all the skills his entry game is one of the best of the league right from the start he was great entry player so you would think like all that playmaking is going to lead you down a path of being very productive but it really is difficult to do without being able to score And so if you can score yourself, you can then draw, first you're going to draw more legitimate movement from the goalie. You're going to draw more legitimate defensive pressure. People are going to defend you differently, which then opens up the pass. So the chicken and the egg is less about the confidence for me, although I think that's an

accelerator, it's more that if you want to be able to build out those other aspects of your game, it all works together. It's all intertwined. more you score, the more opportunities you're going to have to be able to make plays off the past to other people. The more you make plays off the past to other people, the more opportunities you're going to end up having to score because those things intertwine. Well, you see that, you see the relationship between those, but between the kind of shot pass option and decision-making process for him on the power play, right? Where they've got him and Jasper Bratt set up on opposing

flanks and they've become one of the best tandem in the league at working that cross-ice action where Jack Hughes can freeze the defense and then get it over for Brat where if it gets through there it's essentially like the hockey equivalent of an al-upe right like you're not going to be able to stop that the goalie won't be able to get over in time and so I think Jack's ability to actually come down that left circle and pick his spot and at least keep you honest has really almost it's put the opposing penalty kill and opposing goalie in a bit of a crunch right where you want to play the percentages, you want to sort of lean towards what you think is the most likely outcome.

You're almost playing like a defensive triage, right, where you know that you won't be able to stop the bleeding everywhere, so you're kind of going to the most imminent threat. And for a while it was, okay, well, you could just play the past. But now all of a sudden, it feels like goalies are almost sometimes being caught in a bit of a no man's land where you're leaning over a little bit to make sure you can get across that lateral push. But at the same time, you have to respect the fact that he,

He can just walk down now and shoot it and he's doing it with with even more volume, as we mentioned. All right. So the biggest change in a shooter when a guy like Hughes starts to shoot and score more is where they put the puck when they're prior to shooting. So when you see him on the power play, for example, the difference between him in this year and in previous years on the power play in these types of situations. and in any real scoring situation where he has the puck, he has the puck originally in a shooting position. He puts it in a shooting position because he believes that he is a legitimate threat. So he's not just showing that as a shot threat.

He believes that that is an option that's on the table. When you don't believe that you can score and you don't think that or that not only that you don't believe, you don't believe it, but that you feel like the best play available is going to be off the pass, you hold the puck in a different spot. And so you're less believable also that you are a dual threat because you're holding the puck in a position where the pass is really the only play. And then you'll see players that don't have the same level of confidence. They'll come down, they have the puck in the middle of their body, which is a great place, coming down the strong

side flank to be able to pass the puck. Not very good to shoot it. So they'll keep the puck in the middle of their body. And so now they're not a shot. Now they get to a point where they've evaluated all the options. They view themselves their shot as the last option. So now at the last second, they stick handle the puck to move it into a shooting position and then shoot it. Well, by that time, it's crystal clear that that's the only option that they have.

And so now they're basically shooting it right at the goalie or in order to score, they're going to have to, you know, they're going to have to hit like a very unrealistic part of the net. That's the difference. So once you think you can score, and this is, I think, a major difference with Jack is he now has the puck as soon as he gets it in a shooting position. And so now, because he doesn't believe his shot is actually the last option, he believes his shot is in, it might not be the number one option, but it's certainly in the top couple. And so he's ready to go. And he's just evaluating, is it shot or is it pass? And he's ready to pull the trigger. It's not like, well, puck's in the middle of my body. Oh, okay, no pass. No pass. Okay, that's not a play.

Okay, well, maybe I should shoot it. And then now it's the last option. It's very, very different. And I think as you evolve, and it's a great, for me, it's an indicator of a player's confidence in their shot is where they hold the puck pre-shot. Well, the thing that's interesting, though, as you know, and you may mention this in your book, and we've certainly talked about this a bunch over the years, is no matter how lethal a shooter you are, the most dangerous or the most likely outcome for a goal is still quickly off of a pass, right?

If you get people moving, windows are going to open up to shoot through. And so any shooter, I mean, certainly, you know, to Kanaas and Matthews, for example, you don't want to give him space to walk into a wrist shot or a snapshot because he can still, you know, disguise it, pick his spot and beat the goalie cleanly. But for the most part, even though Hughes has made advancements in his game in that regard, he's still, I think, most dangerous off the pass and he's going to be played as such. And so the clip that I keep coming back to from last season is the one where he's, coming across and we can have a whole debate now in terms of whether the, how the goalies are playing

with the reverse VH, right, and how if they're giving too much space by going down, but it's clear that it's at least in the back of their mind that, all right, I got to be aware of this backdoor play here because I know that Hughes can thread the needle for a tap and I don't want to get beaten that way. So you're coming off your post a little bit and his ability now, and we're seeing this across the league, not just limited to him, but I think he's experimented with it a lot over the past year, is patiently coming down that wall, getting into that kind of dead zone. And then if he catches the goalie leaning that way, he's trying to exploit that little shooting window there in the top corner

kind of around his ear. And I just, I love that kind of cat mouse game there between shooter and goalie. And I wonder kind of what the next steps or progressions of that are going to be over the next couple of years. Well, you know, the other thing too is that Jack is a left shot, which does, it does change things a little bit on the, in those types of situations that you're describing because now you're on the blocker side of most, like majority of goalies you're on the blocker side.

And so the advantage of that is that play that's along the ice between the heel of the goalie and his pad as he's going down is also available as a five whole chance. But once you get into, once you get below that, below the dot or the dead angle, for example. So that's one element of it. So there's that. Then you have the pass threat. Then you have the fact that he has the puck in a shooting position all the time. So if he does see a goalie leaning or moving.

So from the dot to the goal line, the goalie is forced to move. He has to move. And he's either going to try to stay square to it or they flatten out so that they can move. So the flatter they are to you, so the more square they are to you, the shooter, the less capable they are of being able to move laterally. The more they flatten out and now they're more square to the goal line, the more they can move laterally,

but have a harder times thing squared to you a puck. So they are, this is the cat mouse aspect is how square. And at what point does it make sense for the goalie to be square to you or to be flat on the goal line? And then the shooter is reading this. And then to your point, they're going to go down in the reverse VH or the VH or whatever it is. And because they're trying to close off not only that space, but then also give them most opportunity to be able to move. You also have the evolution of the net front forward. who is much more difficult to defend now because they're not always just only trying to take away the eyes of the goalie.

They will fall off the backside of the goalie or like fall off his heels, as they say. But they'll start at the net right in front of the goalie. And then as it looks like their shot is going to be imminent or the play is going to be imminent, they move to the words the back door. And so that creates a whole other dynamic, which I think it expands the net that's available to the shooter because now they can pass it or rebound it off of the net front guy. So the amount of space that the goalie has to defend is now much larger. So if you have a threat, a passing threat to the backside, you have a shooter who's a left shot against a goalie who is on who is. who is on his blocker side. And the shooter believes he can score from there.

He has the shots and the tools to be able to shoot it from there. So he has it in a shooting position. And then you have the net front guy willing to fall off the net at the right time. Now it's just a matter of reading, like, which is the right play? Is the goalie now square to me where it makes more sense to pass it off of my support because it's going to be more difficult for the goal. to be able to move that way or does the goalie is he worried about me passing it into that space and now flattens out because wants to be able to then move that way and then opens up either to

your point under is under the uh under the crossbar or sometimes they'll sneak it like where the pants and the blocker is they'll go into that spot just above the pad or they'll see this five whole shot just off the heel of the goalie. And then that's not to mention the number of times they might just purposely pass it off the goalie to the next layer or of guy that's coming down. So it is a really, really difficult position for a goalie to be in when the shooter believes they are a true dual threat. They could shoot it or pass it and they have the puck presented in that way.

Well, the devils are a smart team, right? You can see the way they're the personnel they're favoring and how they're using their players and the players that are type of targeting. And those advancements and kind of the list of responsibilities are criteria that a net front player has to check off now compared to five or 10 years ago has become so much more diverse and becoming a threat in that way in terms of more, rather than just kind of posting up there, sticking your butt in the goalie's face and just being immovable.

Now all of a sudden you want to be darting in and out. You want to be available for that back door. you want to be incorporating tips in different ways. And who are the devil's best net front guys now? It's like, I guess Tim O'Meier, since they acquired him because of his size, but also like a Dawson Mercer who's not necessarily 10 years ago, coaches might have laughed you out of the room if you're like, well, we're going to have him kind of work around the net and clean up the greasy stuff.

But that's what he does for this team. And that's why he's had success playing on these scoring lines, you know, last year and the year previous. And so it's interesting to kind of see that the devils are also doing a really good job of surrounding and with the players that can take advantage of those diversity of options. Not only that, but then all your skill players are landing at the net, not in a traditional sense, like getting there early, trying to post up to your point, and then getting pushed around and trying to jockey for a position to take the goalie's eyes.

They might just arrive there as the puck is arriving there. And they might rotate theirs. They might start below the goal line. Then they rotate on the back of the defensemen who, at the net, they might come on the back of him. And then now when the puck arrives at the net, they have exclusive access to that rebound or they can be a pass can go off their stick. And they're really not being challenged for that position because their timing and their

arrival and the route that they take make them much more dangerous. So those net area, whether it's rebounds, tips, deflections, plays off the back of the heels of the goalie. Like they're incredibly dangerous now because it's coming from all angles and many more players in the offensive lineup can have a net presence where before it would be like, you know, unless you're going to go there and take a pounding and stand there and try to take the goalies eyes, there's just multiple ways you can do that. Now a guy might even just go for a flash screen.

He just times it. So when the guy is going to shoot it, there's an interaction between the shooter and the guy that's going to screen. And instead of him standing there, he just skates right in front of the goalie, just flashing a screen just as the moment the guy releases the puck. So the goalie just has a hard time picking it up. There's just a lot more ways in which you can inhibit a goalie's ability to make a save

than just having a net front guy who's only standing there. And to see that now where you just see a guy standing there, it's just very rare. There's so much rotation of position. There's for most teams they have and the devils are this way, they'll have a net front presence, but it's not the same guy. It's guys are getting rotated in and out of that position.

And they're looking to be there at different times and with different advantages in mind. And when you get creative players like that, that Meyer is elite. Like he's not a guy that's just going to stand in front of the net. Like he can shoot it. He can make plays. He's got a lot of skills. So he's not just going to stand there.

He's got a lot of tools in which he can utilize. I think Bratt's a guy that he flashes through there all the time. He gets a lot of net area scramble type goals where he's got great timing. So he's a guy that also gets those spots. And then like you said, the Mercer kid who's a tough kid. But man, what skill set he has? He's another one that has a tremendous amount of tools. in the toolkit that they can utilize for many different purposes,

which is I think that's where offense is going, is like it used to be, well, you have this guy is the passer, you have this guy that's a shooter, you got this guy that's going to be at the net, and he's going to go and retrieve pucks. Now everybody has to do everything.

And the diversity of skill set that's required to be able to score, not only individually, but as a team is so high that that's why I think you see something. this stuff. All right, Darrell, let's take our break here. And then when we come back, we'll keep talking about Jack Hughes. You're listening to the Hockey P.D.O.cast streaming on the SportsNet Radio Network. Well, one final thing in the Shaw Department before we move on other areas of his game is, and I really, as scary as it is to say about someone who just scored 43 goals and at 99 points, I think Hughes is still scratching the surface in this regard in terms of he's got so many

tools at his disposal that he just creates so many opportunities that he's going to be able to optimize that even more. And I believe support. Logic had him second in the league and in chances created off the rush last year and the devils were one of if not the best rush teams in the league as a whole. But a big reason for that was because of Hughes, I'd believe only Connor McDavid was ahead of him in terms of rush chances generated. And something McDavid has really become so effective at is when he utilized that speed off the rush to get in one-on-one versus the goalie or even potentially one-on-one versus

a defender, the threat of his speed. and then the fact that he is stick handling so furiously the entire time keeps it keeps it very unpredictable. And I was going to ask you this. I'm not sure I can't think of it on the top of my head in terms of players who score more frequently on kind of like low shots where it's not only five old, but it's pretty much along the ice. Generally we think like, all right, you got to get the puck up. You got to pick your spot just under the bar, bar down to beat a goalie in today's game. Whereas McDavid, because of that threat of his speed and the unpredictability of.

of the number of moves he can hit you with, he's able to constantly beat goalies with almost these, you know, for lack of a better word, like dinky-looking shots where he just kind of, kind of shovels the puck towards the net, and it gets the goalie in his feet before he's able to set and get set in position.

And I think McHughes can incorporate a bit more of that in his game and potentially become even more lethal as a finisher off the rush, which is frightening to think about considering he already has the 43 goals in his bag. Yeah, I would agree with you. I think the sky's the limit for, Hughes, I wouldn't be one that would put any limits on what he's capable of. As it relates to like McDavid and Hughes, one of the things that you notice with McDavid when he is able to create a lot of these things is that he has constantly has the goalie's feet

unsettled. Goleys are always sliding or moving when he shoots. And it's because of the combination of his speed, which is. unbelievable, but also the angles he takes. He doesn't skate at the goalie. He skates on little angles that force the goalie to have to make adjustments. So like if you could envision him skating straight down the dot line. And once he got to the top of the circle and then a little bit lower than the top of the circle,

the goalie can't stay, is never going to be able to stay totally square. He has to continue to adjust his position, a justice position, as, Connor comes down and down and down and down. And then if he starts moving on angles or diagonals and things like that, then it makes it even more difficult. So you have a guy who can fly. His top end speed is ridiculous. But then he can change speeds and he's working off of angles. And he understands when the goalie is vulnerable, when the goalie's feet are unsettled.

And he knows that the odds of the goalie staying dead square and being exactly in the right position is really low. So it just creates such a massive advantage for him to then be able to attack that area. So if you know that the goalie's feet are unsettled and he's off his angle, would it not make sense to exploit that particular area? Of course it would. So that's why you see him shoot low a lot because he knows that that's the vulnerability. If he shoots it in the air, he almost let the goalie off the hook a little bit where he can really get his hands and use his hands. because his hands weren't as affected by the movement.

But when your feet are being directly affected by the movement of not only the speed, but the angles that he's choosing at that speed, that's where the vulnerability is. And I think players like Jack Hughes, they start to figure these things out. Like when, you know, you can imagine the level of confidence that he now has after scoring that many goals. and the level of excitement he has and the areas of opportunity that he would also see for where goals would be,

you can bet that he has spent the time studying and understanding these things. And if it's not this area, you can bet that there's multiple areas that he's already earmarked for opportunities. I mean, we're just watching video as you're going by. And you can see the number of times that McDavid is scoring on these plays where the goal, he's literally sliding out of the net. Like they're not even in the net. You know, or they're sliding into the post

on one side and the play is going to the other. So, you know, you take a look at a guy like Hughes and then the combination of Hughes and Brat, like when those two guys play together, like they're frightening because they skate so well off the puck. I think Brat was a,

was an accelerator for, like Brat's an accelerator for Hughes and Hughes is an accelerator for Brat because both of the, them play so well off the pass off or off the puck off the rush. So they're always sprinting and making it very difficult. So Hughes and Brat, depending on which the other guy has the puck, they're always working off of speed differentials against defensemen who are very vulnerable.

So there's a lot of opportunity for Hughes to be able to take his rush game and, and take it to a completely other level. and that's not even talking about, you know, the impact that Brat could have as he continues to go forward and the more and the two of them continue to play together longer. Yeah, that's remarkable looking at these clips as you're mentioning it. It feels like almost on a lot of these, the goalie doesn't even probably know where his net actually is

by the time McDavid is done with him, right? And I think that was a big step in why, you know, Nathan McKinnon similarly early in his career would, every time you look up, he would have a two-on-one rush chance or a breakaway and his shooting percentage was incredibly low and I think one of the things he got really good at as well was working those angles that you mentioned the McDavid does now Hughes has already shown so much of that at 22 years old or whatever that I've no doubt he'll get even a step further but it's like you create these unique circumstances to attack with your

speed or with your skill when you get out in transition and then actually fully taking advantage of those as well is kind of the next layer to really take you from like star to to you know super like game-breaking superstar. Well, the interesting part is the comparisons that we're talking about are the frightening speed of a devastating speed of a McDavid or a McKinnon who's very similar, who also reinvented his shooting over the course of his, over the course of his career. But the interesting part with Hughes is you wouldn't necessarily say Hughes is at that level of speed, but you could

argue that his skating is as equally impressive. He does interesting things with his skating that are very dynamic and he is very unique in his edge work and his ability to skate. He's one of the best

skaters and I think an underrated skater in the NHL in terms of his use of skating to create competitive advantage. I think he's one of the best. And it's these types of things like his ability to dart and and jump into space and change speeds and turn on a dime and he has like that he has that like barzel-esque ability to move laterally and and to use

his skating in a different way so it's it's very interesting that we talk about like a McDavid or or a McKinnon and that level of skater with a Hughes and I think it's warranted because Hughes is no less impressive with the types of things that he can do with his feet. It's just done differently and more and really unique. Like when you look at the clips that you're running here as we're talking, how many times is it like a quick move from one foot to the other? And that allows him to travel all of a sudden six or eight feet. That type of an asset is just massive.

And I think that's what you saw with his shot. is he was able to use his great skating ability and leverage it inside of his shot, which he hadn't done previously. And that just creates such a massive area of opportunity. Like it's all of a sudden, like opening an entire new floor on the house when you have an ability to use that kind of skating ability inside of your shooting. It's phenomenal. I was going to ask you, I imagine that that,

utilizing or incorporating those speed differentials that you mentioned kind of, you know, slowing down, speeding up craftily incorporating that must be incredibly tricky for a young player, right? Because generally, if you're as talented as these guys were mentioning, you're coming from lower levels into the NHL where it's probably never really been actually challenged to do any of this, right? Generally, your top gear is going to be good enough to get you to where you need to be. And so you don't really. really need to mess around with it. Now these guys are so, are so creative and always trying

and do new things that they'll experiment with it and sometimes it's out of boredom. But for the most part, you get into the league, you want to go top speed all the time. And I think for some players, it takes a bit of an adjustment to kind of figure out that sometimes incorporating a change-up

or a curveball here and there can actually make you even faster in the process. And what Hughes does in watching all these clips, almost the most dangerous position you can be in as a defender is he lulls you to sleep because he does that little kind of he gets into the zone he button hooks back up towards the blue line and he slows down to the point where you probably think all right i can finally i see his back i can go i can either hit him or push him up against the glass and i've got him

where i want him and then as soon as you take that one wrong step he speeds up he gets into the middle of the ice and you're done for it seems like that's kind of that that that's another cat and mouse game that he's really sort of taking advantage of to beat defenders and make it look real easy. When everyone's fast and the difference between speed is so much more, like so much smaller, and the number of players and the number of defenders who can handle elite speed is much higher, then where is the advantage? It's certainly not in the top end speed then. Even with the players like McDavid and McKinnon, their advantage,

is in differential. It's getting, catching someone, a defender slowing down while they are speeding up. And then you get to a point where the speed is just too much. And you can't recover because you were slowing down now, now you're speeding up. Where it shows up for me with a player like Hughes is his ability to attack your heels. He can have a little slowdown, which gets you to over commit your position just slightly and then he has the lateral ability with that edgework to be able to get himself to the inside and attack the heels of the defender.

That ability to slow down briefly to get you at a competitive disadvantage and then quickly take advantage of that space because the recoverability is quick. Like the guy loses you on one side. You can bet he's turning. He's right back. So you have to go from. slowing down to then quickly speeding up to then attack the hole. But then you have all the forethought of being able to recognize where that space is.

And this type of player is not reacting. This type of player is they are putting you in situations on purpose. They manufacture the outcomes. They are creating their own conditions. And that's what it takes time in the NHL to figure out what those conditions are and how you can leverage your assets to be able to do that. Because if you're trying to just, I'm going to attack and then I'm going to wait and see what the defender is going to do and then I'm going to react off that defender.

You're not going to get anywhere in this league. It's too good a league. and the defenders are too good to be able to be able to do that with. Sure, there's a few like quick reaction situations in which they find their thing. I'm not saying never, but I'm saying for the most part, this level of player is manufacturing their outcome. There's something that they see in advance and they create that advantage and they bring and invite the defender into a bad spot to then take advantage of them.

Well, and you see that by how he meticulously like packages or I guess stacks, as you like to say, skills in a sequence. And sometimes over the course of a game, right, he'll kind of plant the seed where I remember there was a game where he was just basically doing anything he wanted. And it was against the Blackhawks defense. So last year that wasn't necessarily an aberration for them. But he was almost a Harlem Globetreras-esque performance where early in the game, I remember he comes down the right wing. he does a spin move and then takes it out wide, gets to the net, and creates a chance that way. And then later on in the game, in a similar circumstance,

he's coming down the right wing on his offside, and he fakes the spin move, starts it, gets the defender to bite, and then just goes back into the middle of the ice and creates a chance there. And so that ability to kind of put something on tape once or put something on the ice and then build off of that

and sort of have the defender at your mercy in terms of what you're going to do next, is kind of this next level of playmaker that we saw him do routinely on a nightly basis last year. Well, this, what you're alluding to is really the genesis of genius in this league. And that is to have a habit in which, that you can count on to create a frequency of event.

So you have a set of habits. You have a way of thinking, of a way of moving around the rank, a way of reading the game, and that gives you a number of instances that you can count on during the game. So they know he's going to get six or eight, even strength rush chances every single night because he knows his habits will support that. Now, once you got those habits and then you have your skill set that goes with those habits, you now have a variance of outcome.

So your habits and your skills bring you into the event. Once you're in the event, there's any number of manipulatives that you can have based on circumstance. So, you know, is a defender right-handed shot or left-handed shot? Is a defender recovering their position? Is a defender at a speed differential? Is what else do I have with me? Maybe I have a threat on the other side. Maybe they're late in a shift.

maybe I'm early in a shift. All these circumstances, these are all things that weigh into how this player is going to then leverage or manipulate their skill set to then produce a result. That's the genesis of genius. They get in those situations multiple times and then you wouldn't see them necessarily do it the same way each time. But how they got in there is exactly the same. How they created the chance is exactly the same.

But what they did once they were in that chance, all six of those situations would be different. And the reason is because then they see what the situation is. They maybe are looking for a manipulative. And then they see where their advantage is. And bang, they just react in terms of employing their right skills for that particular situation. That's why it's so difficult to be elite in that league. because that's what you have to get to in order to be able to produce consistent results.

And that's what you're seeing with Hughes is he's a genius. His mindset is a genius and he has leverageable assets like his skating ability, his hands, and his mind. And you combine all those things together. And then you make a look at his habits

of how he gets the same or similar chances over and over and over again. And then he has all these manipulatives that he can work with. And then it allows him to have the variance of skill. And that's when you're building a player, that's what's important. At the end of the day, it's the ability to vary the skill in the end. And that takes a big depth of skill, which is what you see with Hughes.

And that's why the sky's the limit. Like, who knows what he's capable of? Because he has the habits support the skills. And then the skills and the habits combined, him frequency of event. Now he has the frequency of event. And now he has the creativity and the manipulatives to be able to impact the results. That's a guy you just kick.

Like that's world class superstar in this league. And that's to me the genesis of the genius. For that surplus of skill, though, as you see when you watch them play, I think what really unlocked a lot from last year is just the strength he added. And that's understandable for a player who's in their fourth year and entering their mid-20s here. because all of a sudden now you have those skills, you have that maneuverability, you're taking him out of the defender,

but he's also able now to power through contact to get to his final destination, right? And I think that's a big step for him here where he's almost going out of his way now to not necessarily invite contact, but you talk about attacking the defender's heels. Sometimes if he catches you leaning forward, he'll attack your stick, right?

Like he'll go right through it. He'll knock it out of your hands. He won't let that be something that provides a roadblock for him getting to where he wants to get to. And that's what I saw him do incorporate much more last year, that all of a sudden now it's not necessarily, oh, well, you know, he's this undersized skill guy who's dancing around the outside. No, he can get to every single spot he wants on the ice.

And that's why not only was he second in rush chances, but I believe he was fifth or sixth in the league in shots from the slot as well. Like he was getting to those areas where we used to once think that only certain players could get to and they didn't look like Hughes, but now all of a sudden he's almost living there. So what strength and power does for you is for a guy like Hughes, it does two things. One, it creates a lot more confidence that you can handle contact and you can withstand contact. But it also allows you to get on the outside or the or to their arms, the arms of the check.

So what I mean by that is if you don't have the strength and power to be able to move in a certain way, the defender, once they get a beat on you, are going to be able to play your body. So now it becomes a strength battle. If I can physically hit you shoulder to shoulder and I'm stronger, I'm going to be able to leverage that. What a player like Jack is able to do is his strength and power puts him in a spot where he can get into your arms. So now you're not going shoulder to shoulder with him. He's able to use his strength to get slightly ahead of you. So now because he's slightly ahead of you, the tables turn in terms of leverage.

So he's able to improve the leverages because he's able to get into your extremities or the outside. He gets on the end of your stick or he gets on the outside outstretched arms. that's what that strength and power does. But it takes time to get there. And then you have to build confidence in it. You've got to be able to do it a few times and then feel what that contact really is and where your advantage is. And that's what you saw. And like you said, it takes three or four years to kind of figure out not only what kind of strength do I need.

Because, you know, he's still not going to be 220 pounds, right? And yet there's a lot of defense men or how many defensemen are not 220 pounds. Like there's a lot of D that are 220 pounds. So and they can move and they're incredibly strong. So they're still looking at a lot of strength imbalances at times where he's not going to be able, shouldn't win that battle from a strength perspective. But what he does is he uses his strength to be able to get that slight movement ahead to flip the leverage. That's what strength and power does to a player like Jack Hughes. And you see it

with all those like quote unquote undersized really skilled guys. And you see it a lot with undersized skilled defensemen who have to defend people one on one and they win all those about they're able to flip the leverages. That's what a player like Hughes is able to do. Well, and on top of all that, he was also, as we're watching clips of him making passes, he was also, I think, fifth or sixth in the league and passes at a slot last year. And they spent part of the year, I understand why they liked Eric Hala with him because he does a lot of the dirty work. He would take the face-offs, understandable.

But now because they're paying huge, what, $8 million a season, which is a bargain for what he's producing, they're able to go out and add a guy like Timom Maya last year. They add Tyler Tofoli this summer. And so not only do you have Brat there now with him, but I actually think, you know, we mentioned that the goals could go up. I think based on the quality of chances he's creating for his teammates, the assists could spike as well here,

especially in that game environment where the devils are just constantly playing at a high pace moving up and down the ice. And so I guess that's a good place to end this conversation in terms of what's next. Like what is there, like you've worked with him. What's next on the agenda in terms of adding to the game in terms of what you can, what heights you can take your game to this year based on what we saw him already do last season.

Well, in my mind, he still has a lot to explore as to how to continue to use his skating assets inside of his ability to threaten the net. He's also, I think, took a massive step in his ability to shoot off the pass. And I think that that's an area that he'll continue to get better at as he gets more and more confident and to your point, as you play with not only better players, but you also play with players longer, they get to know where you want to go. And I think that there's a familiarity factor that will now be able to start settling in. That devil's roster is really, it's, it has, it didn't really turn over like many other rosters do. Like in a cap era,

you're typically expecting 25 to however many percentage of your roster to flip over. With the devils, they've been able to keep a lot of that group together, particularly in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, in the, that's going to be able to settle in on more familiarity amongst the group in terms of habits and the types of chances that each player likes to create and they get more familiar with that. To me, that's going to be, that's going to be where the, where the accelerator is this year. him becoming more and more familiar with what he's more and more capable of with his, with his skating and leveraging his own assets. And then the familiarity with the group, as the group has gotten more talented and more skilled, he then is going to be able to find other areas of the ice where he's more confident

that people could find him off the pass. So some of his ability to shoot off the pass has been playing with people who can find him off the past. So if there's nobody that's finding you off the past, why would you move to those areas? You're just not. But now all of a sudden you feel like you could go to those areas and you're going to get the puck.

You're going to go there more. I think that the devils as a group are going to be so exciting. They were exciting last year to work with to watch. And I think they're going to be even more exciting this year because of those factors. And all those young guys are now just one year older and much more have a better understanding of how they can utilize each other. I think that's another. That is kind of the X factor that we don't talk enough

about in player development is one plus one can sometimes equal six in terms of the accelerating impact of two players who are on the same page. And one plus one can sometimes equal minus four. You know what I mean? Because they just don't work well together. And I think that that's a 10 integer scale where things can go one way or the other. And I think that's what you're seeing with the devils. Well, I'll like that. They were fun to watch last year. I think this year they could be special.

Hughes individually, them as a team. I'm excited to watch. And that's why I wanted to do this episode here as the season starts. Darrell on the way out, I'll let you tell the listeners where they can check you out, tell them about your book, give them all that good stuff because this is the first episode of the series. hoping that especially if people like it, we'll pick a handful of other players and we'll give them similar sort of deep dive treatments and talk about the intricacies of their games.

So hopefully this is a recurring thing for us. And so tell the listeners kind of a little bit more about where they can check out if they like this conversation, where they can check out more of it. Well, I mean, any Google search that types in Belfrey hockey, you're going to come into either the website or you're going to come into all our social media, which is all under Belfrey hockey and you'll be able to find the book or, you know, right now I'm in a, I'm in a tear of breaking down individual players for one minute every day. So there'll be more than enough hockey content in there for those who are so inclined. Awesome, Daryl. This is a blast.

We'll have you on again soon. Thank you to the listeners for listening to us. We'll be back more with more of the HockeyPedio cast streaming on the Sportsnet Radio Network.