Jack Hughes, NTDP, & Dan Hinote’s Stanley Cup Wisdom

Former USNTDP coach Dan Hinote continues sharing his expertise, helping LA Kings prospect Jack Hughes and company about his Stanley Cup win.

For LA Kings prospect Jack Hughes, the experience of playing for the United States National Team Development Program was an invaluable one. That goes without saying. For Dan Hinote, though, his experience on the USNTDP coaching staff did not go without teaching Hughes and company some important lessons along the way.

While real-life lessons like managing money were a focal point for discussion, Hinote reflected on his own playing career and how he used that to inspire Hughes and company. Of course, while he may not have been a superstar at the NHL level, the Minnesota-raised former winger does know a thing or two about working hard to reach the top.

When one’s drafted in the seventh round by the defending Stanley Cup champions, a plethora of skeptics tend to come out of the woodwork. There are, after all, more than enough reasons why a player in this situation won’t make it to the big show, if you will. But that was exactly Dan Hinote’s predicament in 1996 when the Colorado Avalanche drafted him 167th overall. But the Army alum was not deterred.

After two years in the OHL for the Oshawa Generals and two-and-a-half more seasons with the AHL’s Hershey Bears, Hinote made his Avs debut in early 2000. A little over a year later, he celebrated the ultimate success with a Stanley Cup.

Hinote spoke to me about his overall tenure with the Avalanche. But he also discussed how he used that to teach Jack Hughes and the rest of the USNTDP.

“Well, for me, I mean, I wasn’t a skilled guy,” a self-deprecating Hinote quipped. “I didn’t have the skill that these guys had. I never did. But I played with guys that have and so I talk about that type of team. I reference guys like Joe Sakic, Peter Forsberg, Chris Drury, Milan Hejduk, Alex Tanguay — all the special players that I played with — and if you pay attention, you can learn from that. So, maybe I can’t replicate Peter Forsberg’s reverse hit, picked it up with his feet and bring it to the house; but I remember every single thing that he did to do that. So, it’s kind of like, ‘All right, I can teach it but I can’t necessarily pull it off myself.’”

While he may not have been a first-line player, Hinote was nonetheless integral to Colorado’s success in 2001. In 23 games that postseason, the former right-winger dropped the gloves on a few occasions, earned a plus-four rating and even scored a pair of goals and four assists. Yet, regardless if he was on the top line or eating up just a few minutes of ice time, Hinote’s experience was noteworthy.

“When I’m talking to these young guys– a lot of these guys had either a parent or a brother or someone in the game that knew of those players,” Explained the former Av. “So, a lot of these guys are hockey nerds, which works in my favor because if you’re a hockey nerd, then you remember that ’01 Colorado team. They were stacked. It’s an easy reference point for me to be, like, ‘Hey, listen, this is what Pete [Forsberg] used to do; this is what Joe [Sakic] used to do. Like, this is how [Ray Bourque] used to do it, this is how [Rob Blake] used to do it, this is what Patrick Roy used to do.

“All these players love that stuff and you can visibly see their ears perk up when you start to bring up their heroes and the stuff they used to do, because then there’s relevance. Like, ‘Oh, okay. Yeah, I remember him. I love that guy. So, I go, ‘Okay, well, you want to play like he did, this is what you have to do.’ So, that helps kind of forward on the message of what I want to get across because it’s never going to be like, ‘Hey, do this because I used to do it.’ It’s going be, ‘Do this because the best in the world used to do it, and they won because of it.’ So, that helped me a ton: having success at that level and playing with those caliber players. It allowed me to forward whatever message I wanted to to make their game better. It made it a lot more relevant when you could use players of that caliber.”

Along the way, youngsters playing, and learning, the game will come across those who have won at various levels. The luckiest ones will come into contact with those who won at the highest level. The latter describes LA Kings prospect Jack Hughes and the USNTDP program having the privilege of playing for Dan Hinote.

This is another interesting chapter in a young player’s journey – and we have Mr. Hinote to thank.