DENVER\u00a0\u2013 The\u00a0Colorado Avalanche Hockey Club announced today the team has signed forward\u00a0T.J. Hughes\u00a0to a one-year, entry-level contract\u00a0for the 2026-27 campaign. He will join the Colorado Eagles on an AHL Professional Tryout agreement (PTO) for the remainder of the 2025-26 season.<\/p>\n
Hughes\u00a024, was the captain of the University of Michigan team that fell to University of Denver in double overtime in the Frozen Four Semifinal on Thursday. On the season, he registered 57 points (22g\/35a) in 40 contests to rank second in the nation in scoring and lead the Wolverines in points. He also finished second in both goals and assists and set collegiate single-season career-highs for tallies, helpers and points in the process.<\/p>\n
In 2025-26, Hughes filled his portfolio by capturing First Team AHCA\/CCM All-America honors, the Big Ten Player of the Year, earned a Big Ten First All-Star Team selection, a spot on the Big Ten All-Tournament Team and was a Hobey Baker Award \u201cHat Trick\u201d Finalist.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The 6-foot, 185-pound forward played four seasons for Michigan (2022-26) and amassed 179 points (69g\/110a) over 156 contests. He led the team in scoring each of the last two seasons and helped guide the Wolverines to the Frozen Four in three of his four campaigns in Ann Arbor. In addition to his 2025-26 individual awards, Hughes took home Second Team All-Big Ten honors in the 2024-25 season when he tallied his 100th\u00a0career point, and was Honorable Mention All-Big Ten squads in both 2023-24 and 2022-23. Hughes was teammates with Avalanche prospect and fellow former Big Ten\u00a0Player\u00a0of the Year Gavin Brindley from 2022-24.<\/p>\n
A native of Hamilton, Ontario, Hughes competed for the Alberta Junior Hockey League\u2019s Brooks Bandits from 2019-22 and registered 194 points (94g\/100a) over 138 regular-season games and added 23 points (12g\/11a) over 11 AJHL playoff contests. The Bandits captured the Inter Pipeline Cup in 2022. That championship campaign, Hughes paced the circuit in goals with 66 and was named the league\u2019s Forward of the Year. The season before that, he took home the Ernie Love Trophy as the skater who tallied the most points (31). Hughes was teammates with Avalanche prospect Taylor Makar in Brooks from 2019-21.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Hughes\u00a0also played one game for the Ontario Junior Hockey League\u2019s Burlington Cougars in 2018-19 and spent two seasons in the GOJHL\u00a0from 2017-19.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DENVER\u00a0\u2013 The\u00a0Colorado Avalanche Hockey Club announced today the team has signed forward\u00a0T.J. Hughes\u00a0to a one-year, entry-level contract\u00a0for the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":598691,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-598690","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598690","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=598690"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/598690\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/598691"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=598690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=598690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=598690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}