T. J. Hughes

Shot from Vilardi, that's ricocheted wide.

TJ Hughes slaps at the boards, doesn't make it out of the zone.

And now Burns.

There to steal it away for Colorado.

Jaden Schwartz gets his first goal in burgundy and blue, and finally one finds its way past Stuart Skinner.

Schwartz makes it one-nothing Avalanche.

He thought about a pass to TJ Hughes, but instead kept it himself.

There were three Jets just staring at him.

but I mean, other than that, like it's, I thought the entries were good.

You know, like there's a little bit of, you know, kind of, I guess figuring it out because you've got TJ Hughes on that top unit.

They're giving him some good opportunities and there's some movement there that we haven't seen in years past when like they're giving him kind of free reign to go to some open areas and try and be a support valve.

And McKinnon now working the opposite side from nature, which we didn't see a ton last year.

If you're Michigan and you are a hockey powerhouse that recruits heavily from the CHL, and you got Brandon Naurato, who I think is one of the best young and upcoming coaches in the world, going on TV shows and podcasts and literally saying, [lip smacks] "Uh, if you play in the CHL, call me and come play Michigan." Right? Literally, that's his recruiting, and it works because they're unreal.

Shout out TJ Hughes, who played his first two NHL games too from Michigan with Colorado.

Uh, coached him for two years, no big deal.

Um, what was I saying? So let's say what you're saying is like, "Oh yeah, we're just gonna up and we're gonna leave." Well, they're also a football powerhouse.

So, um, yeah, those, our guys know those guys obviously real well, and, and they, you know, they know what they have to do against them.

That's Scott Arniel talking about the handful that is the Colorado Avalanche, and one of the change or well, the noticeable changes, TJ Hughes, the third line is a new look entirely for the Avalanche.

It's TJ Hughes, Fedor Sveshkov, and Jaden Schwartz.

Now, TJ Hughes, if you recall, had the hat trick in Denver in the pre-season finale.

But it's still the same, like our Lehtonen, MacKinnon, Natys, Landeskog, Nelson, Kadri top six, very elite for the Colorado Avalanche.

Mm-hmm.

So Kadri, when he was traded back from Calgary last year, that's where he spent most of his time, on power play one.

They have moved MacKinnon over to the wall, which I think has freed up a lot of things.

Necas has gone over two and a half shots in both games so far.

TJ Hughes, who I'm- He's kind of struggled.

He's kind of, you know, he's been bounced down the lineup already.

You know, you can tell it's an adjustment.

He lit it up in the preseason, but what I was worried about with TJ Hughes is would that carry over to the regular season? It hasn't so far.

Not the production hasn't, but he still has been able to go over one and a half shots on goal, TJ Hughes i- in each of Colorado's first two games as well.

So there's some good shot prop numbers out there, props that are out there.

Uh, players that are on multi-game shots on goal streaks to the over.

Talk to me about some of the new guys, Coach.

Your initial thoughts through a couple games of Jaden Schwartz and Svechkov and T.J. Hughes.

Yeah, well, I think they're all doing a really nice job right now.

Schwartzy as a veteran guy coming in, you know, you got a really good idea, you know, as a coaching staff, like what he can bring to the table.

He's been really good for us.

The areas that you know he's going to be good at, wall battles, strong on the puck, getting into the dirty areas, net front to create scoring chances.

um can play and compliment you know high-end skilled players he's done all that you know um i think he used the time picked up the system quickly like used the time in exhibition and training camp to ask the right questions look at a little video get dialed in on the systems and and i mean he looks great and he's chipping in in a bunch of different ways for us um T.J. Hughes is an interesting one, right? Rookie success everywhere he's had.

His brain and his passing ability and his skill and his ability to distribute the puck and play with top players has really shown up through the course of training camp.

Now, I think there is a chance that we see L'Rouxe in game one and we see O'Connor in game two, but I don't know if we'll see both of them on the ice at the same time.

It's not entirely a guarantee there, but I also think Jared Bednar is trying to keep a longer leash on TJ Hughes.

With L'Rouxe coming back, Julson is most likely going to be sent back to the Colorado Eagles.

While when Logan O'Connor comes back, when both of them are back, we are probably going to have to send down a forward.

Now, of all the forwards on the team, TJ Hughes is one of the few that has not really put much up offensively, but he is still a rookie.

He is still not really proven himself as an NHL player just yet.

I really wanna see him stay with the team, but he may need to wait until there is another opening s- like close in the future.

Who are they playing with? With O'Connor out, the right wing spots are wide open.

Is it TJ Hughes, or maybe someone from the lower tiers stepping up? [bell dinging]

It's likely a mix.

TJ Hughes has the speed, but he's inexperienced against this level of physicality.

You might see Brock Nelson moving around to provide stability.

He's a center, but he can play wing.