{"id":53941,"date":"2025-08-08T07:04:05","date_gmt":"2025-08-08T07:04:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/53941\/"},"modified":"2025-08-08T07:04:05","modified_gmt":"2025-08-08T07:04:05","slug":"horcoff-hopes-family-ties-help-smooth-road-to-nhl-with-penguins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/53941\/","title":{"rendered":"Horcoff hopes family ties help smooth road to NHL with Penguins"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Horcoff had 10 points (four goals, six assists) in 18 games for Michigan as a freshman last season.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe progression in his game from the start of the year to the end of the year from going to the program at Michigan was immense,\u201d Penguins vice president of player personnel Wes Clark said. \u201cSuper athletic at 6-foot-5. Still very early in his development curve. The mentorship and guidance that he\u2019s obviously gotten from his old man is a big benefit. I think that will go leaps and bounds for Billy there as he continues to develop. I love the upside there.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Horcoff will return to Michigan; he will not be at Pittsburgh training camp in September, Penguins assistant general manager <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nhl.com\/player\/jason-spezza-8469455\" title=\"Jason Spezza\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Jason Spezza<\/a> said.<\/p>\n<p>Spezza knows Horcoff well from playing with Shawn with Dallas in 2014-15.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe was a rink rat. He\u2019s always been a rink rat,\u201d Spezza said. \u201cI think that\u2019s one of the benefits of being the son of an NHL player, you get to be around. So Will\u2019s very comfortable around the arena. I think his love for the game is something that stands out. He\u2019s always working on his game. I\u2019ve kept in touch with Shawn, so I know quite a bit about Will\u2019s path and how things have gone. It\u2019s great to see him here.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Shawn Horcoff, now assistant general manager of the Detroit Red Wings, also played with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nhl.com\/player\/trevor-daley-8470110\" title=\"Trevor Daley\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Trevor Daley<\/a>, special assistant to Pittsburgh general manager Kyle Dubas, with the Stars from 2013-15.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s just such a small world. Time just flies,\u201d Will said. \u201cLike, it\u2019s just crazy. Growing up, all these people working, not even on this team, but on all the teams, going to the combine and having interviews, a ton of them were my dad\u2019s old teammates or guys I knew when I was younger.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Horcoff called Spezza, \u2018Spezz,\u2019 before catching himself.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMr. Spezza played with my dad in Dallas. So that was super cool,\u201d Will said. \u201cMr. Daley played with my dad as well. So, just seeing him, it\u2019s just crazy growing up, remembering when they were players and now, I\u2019m on their team and they\u2019re working in management. It\u2019s pretty surreal.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It won\u2019t come with a leg up, though. Even if it could, Horcoff wouldn\u2019t want it. It\u2019s one more thing he got from his dad.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI try to model my work ethic after him,\u201d he said. \u201cGrowing up, I would always go to the rink when he was on the Stars or the Oilers. Sometimes, he\u2019d be the only one there, only one going on the ice. Just me and him. Just showed me how bad he wanted it. He had an incredible career, so it showed me how hard I need to work.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Horcoff had 10 points (four goals, six assists) in 18 games for Michigan as a freshman last season.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":53942,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":["post-53941","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53941","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=53941"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53941\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/53942"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=53941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=53941"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=53941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}