Welcome back to Screen Shots, where we tackle three hockey topics in shorter chunks. This edition comes after the NHL and NHLPA player media tour featured three days full of intriguing quotes and news.
Without further ado, we lead off with a topic that Vancouver Canucks fans have certainly heard much of this off-season.
New Jersey Devils star center Jack Hughes addressed the possibility of eventually playing with brother and Canucks captain Quinn Hughes.
“Honestly, I’m not afraid to say it. I would love for Quinn to, you know, eventually I’d love to play with him,” Jack Hughes told reporters at the tour. “Whether that’s in New Jersey or at what time that takes, at some point, I want to play with Quinn. But yeah, that’s the question going around. They talk all day about it up in Vancouver, you know?”
This is sure to heighten the anxieties of Canucks fans who’ve been worried that Quinn Hughes will eventually leave Vancouver and join Jack Hughes in New Jersey.
But by the same token, and as Quinn Hughes said on Wednesday, of course, brothers would want to play with each other at some point. But you can always find brothers who’ve played entire NHL careers on different teams.
That’s what makes the Olympics and World Cup of Hockey so compelling – you have teammates who are from the same place and same family tree. You don’t need to play on the same team at the NHL level. If the Canucks give him reason enough to stay in Vancouver, Quinn Hughes will stay. That’s what Canucks fans should be hoping for.
Jack Hughes may believe the Devils will be his only NHL home. But Quinn Hughes could believe the Canucks are his only NHL home. Truth can be stranger than fiction, so anyone who tells you how this all plays out is only taking a guess at it. We’ll have to see what the Hughes Bros. decide, because there will be interest in their future until they’re locked up for the long haul.
NHL Rumor Roundup: Crosby Addresses Trade Rumors, Quinn Hughes Reacts To Brother’s Comments
The Pittsburgh Penguins are rebuilding
their roster, even though management won’t admit it. Forwards Bryan
Rust and Rickard Rakell and defenseman Erik Karlsson have been
frequently mentioned as trade candidates throughout the off-season.
As the media tour unfolded in Las Vegas, league deputy commissioner Bill Daly said the league is planning on shortening the time it takes to get through the first round of the NHL draft.
While Daly said the “strong majority” of NHL teams still want a decentralized draft, there will be production changes to speed up the first round, which took about an hour and a half longer than usual in 2025.
“While it wasn’t as overwhelming a vote as it was the first time we asked, it was still a strong majority (of teams that) wanted to have a decentralized draft,” Daly said. “It was the first time we’ve done it, so from a production standpoint, I think there are going to be significant changes. It’s not going to be a four-and-a-half hour first round.”
That’s welcome news in a world where attention spans are shorter than ever.
As it goes with every pro sports league, the NHL worked on the storytelling of the draft that prioritized the personalities and reactions of the athletes, their families and the GMs and scouts who make the selections. But when it took that long to do it, the effectiveness of that storytelling waned because people were ready to hit the hay.
The league has come many miles in its overall draft production quality and marketing. That doesn’t mean it should be complacent. And Daly’s comments on the draft’s first round are good news, but observers will follow up on it next year.
In some great news, the NHL, NHL Players Association and NHL Alumni Association announced plans to provide all retired players with access to health care.
“It’s just a real great story about all of the groups coming together to make a big difference for NHL players that are the foundation of the game,” said Glenn Healy, president and executive director of the NHL Alumni Association. “This is like Christmas Day for us.”
Healy, Daly and NHLPA assistant executive director Ron Hainsey met with media in Las Vegas Tuesday to discuss the unveiling of the Retired Players Emergency Healthcare and Wellness Fund, to which the league and players association will each contribute $2 million per year through 2029-30.
According to the memorandum of understanding, $2 million will go annually to the league and PA’s Emergency Assistance Fund, which assists NHLAA members without insurance coverage, facing catastrophic health issues without insurance coverage, and those members experiencing financial hardship. The remaining $2 million will be put towards helping provide wellness support for NHLAA members.
Healy told reporters that 787 former NHL players who didn’t have a pension will now be covered.
“Every player will have the ability to have a family doctor through Zoom, whether you played one shift or 10,000 games,” Healy said. “You have the ability to have a mental wellness professional within 30 minutes on Zoom, so if you don’t feel comfortable call me or our medical teams, you’ll have that ability…No one will walk alone.”
You have to be happy for the former NHLers who now will have some degree of security in knowing they can get help for what ails them.
There’s no competition in this sense of things – these are all players, young and old, who are trying to be there for one another. The NHL and NHLPA have done well in working with the alumni to ensure a better quality of life for athletes who have made the league what it is.
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