Team Hughes will also be coached by Canucks coach Rick Tocchet.
The only player of the six representing Vancouver in the All-Star Game who didn’t make Team Hughes is the most recent. Forward Elias Lindholm, who was traded to the Canucks by the Calgary Flames on Wednesday, was selected by Team MacKinnon, led by Colorado Avalanche teammates Nathan MacKinnon and Cale Makar and their famous captain Tate McRae, a multi-platinum singer-songwriter and dancer from Calgary.
The strong Canucks flavor in Team Hughes was also influenced by famed captain Michael Bublé, the Grammy Award-winning musician and avid Canucks fan from Burnaby, British Columbia. Jack Hughes, who is sidelined with an upper-body injury and won’t play in the All-Star Game, said Bublé was pushing them to pick Canucks players.
“He was a huge influence,” Quinn Hughes said. “The four of us just talked, and it was nice. There was no pressure here or anything. It was just like, ‘You want to recruit this guy? Great.’ And that was it.
Picking as many Canucks players as possible could be a winning strategy. Vancouver is tied with the Boston Bruins for the NHL lead with 71 points.
“Our guys are some of the best in the league and that’s why they’re here and our team has been really good this year, so we wanted to pick them,” Quinn Hughes said. “But we also wanted to recruit guys that we didn’t necessarily know were going to be good.”
The only disappointment for the Hughes brothers is that Jack will not be able to participate in the match. Jack said he wasn’t sure whether he would be behind the bench with Tocchet for Saturday’s game.
“This whole weekend is more special because he’s here,” Quinn Hughes said of his brother. “It’s not very often that brothers are in the same boat, let alone in the League, but in the All-Star Game. So it’s a shame that he got injured, but I know that the League and especially I are really happy that he (comes).
TEAM HUGHES ROSTER
Quinn Hughes, VAN
Elias Pettersson, VAN
Nikita Kucherov, TBL
Thatcher Demko, VAN
Kyle Connor, WPG
Brady Tkachuk, OTT
Jesper Bratt, NJD
Cam Talbot, LAC
Brock Boeser, VAN
JT Miller, V.A.N.
Frank Vatrano, ANA
