{"id":889470,"date":"2026-09-09T17:24:13","date_gmt":"2026-09-09T17:24:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/889470\/"},"modified":"2026-09-09T17:24:13","modified_gmt":"2026-09-09T17:24:13","slug":"news-notes-and-quotes-all-the-latest-from-the-nhl-player-media-tour","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/889470\/","title":{"rendered":"News, notes and quotes: All the latest from the NHL Player Media Tour"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Summer break is officially over \u2014 at least for select NHL stars.<\/p>\n<p>Connor McDavid, Brady Tkachuk, John Tavares, Jack and Quinn Hughes, Mitch Marner and Jack Eichel are among the bevy of standouts set to speak with press at the NHL\/NHLPA Player Media Tour in Las Vegas on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s the latest news, notes and quotes you&#8217;ll want to know:<\/p>\n<p>Jack Hughes insists he went outside this summer.<\/p>\n<p>With brother Quinn set to reach free agency at the end of the season, speculation about a potential team-up is primed to ramp back up.<\/p>\n<p>But Jack said it&#8217;s not top of mind.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I think people think we&#8217;re just at home all day, just talking about it. We&#8217;re not. We&#8217;re enjoying the summer. That&#8217;s what summer&#8217;s for, to get away from it and enjoy yourself,&#8221; Jack said, <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/MarkLazerus\/status\/2097722342734770483\" rel=\"nofollow\">per Mark Lazerus<\/a> of The Athletic.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, the 2019 No. 1 pick is curious to see how the last member of the first-overall club, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportsnet.ca\/hockey\/nhl\/players\/gavin-mckenna\/42503d0b-6875-4d9f-947d-4774ad49d661\" class=\"sn-player-post-link\" target=\"_self\" data-player=\"42503d0b-6875-4d9f-947d-4774ad49d661\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Gavin McKenna<\/a>, fares in Toronto.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;He might be the guy that a) might have the spotlight on him the most, but b) might be in the best spot because they should have a good team \u2014 the Leafs probably shouldn&#8217;t have had the first overall pick \u2014 and on top of that he has (Auston Matthews) and John Tavares,&#8221; Hughes said, <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/MLarkinHockey\/status\/2097724252120383927?s=20\" rel=\"nofollow\">per Matt Larkin<\/a> of Daily Faceoff, citing two others who have gone No. 1 in the draft.<\/p>\n<p>Hughes said McKenna, who is already set to live with John Tavares, should be able to lean on both.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;There&#8217;s no better person in the league for him to listen to than Auston Matthews, because AMats has been through all that stuff 10 years ago, so it should be a great setup.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Werenski dishes on chaotic summer<\/p>\n<p>By his own admission, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportsnet.ca\/hockey\/nhl\/players\/zach-werenski\/bd3ac8cc-aee7-4b42-8f10-8cfbb54564d1\" class=\"sn-player-post-link\" target=\"_self\" data-player=\"bd3ac8cc-aee7-4b42-8f10-8cfbb54564d1\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Zach Werenski<\/a>&#8216;s summer &#8220;got a little bit crazy.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The star <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportsnet.ca\/hockey\/nhl\/teams\/columbus-blue-jackets\/\" class=\"sn-team-post-link\" target=\"_self\" data-team=\"columbus-blue-jackets\" data-league=\"nhl\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Columbus Blue Jackets<\/a> defenceman and Norris Trophy winner reportedly requested a trade during the off-season, which he was granted with a proposed move to the Dallas Stars before he vetoed the deal.<\/p>\n<p>He also told general manager Don Waddell he wouldn&#8217;t be signing an extension after his contract expires in two seasons. Then, things changed.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;At a certain point there right around the draft, things got a little crazy, and me and Don spoke a few days later and had a good conversation then, and I was just saying this had gone farther than any of us wanted it to go and it got a little bit crazy and let&#8217;s just get it back on the rails,&#8221; he told Sportsnet&#8217;s Sean Reynolds.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We did just that and it&#8217;s been great ever since.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Now, Werenski said he has one goal for the season: &#8220;making the playoffs in Columbus.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>M&amp;M&amp;M line ready to feast in Calgary<\/p>\n<p>A trio that clicked toward the end of last season, Coronato told Reynolds he sees high potential to keep the good times rolling.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Frost has so much talent, so much skill, he&#8217;s such a good centre. And then Gridin, he&#8217;s gonna be an awesome, awesome player. He&#8217;s so young still, but with his size, the way he can shoot the puck, the way he makes plays, I think he&#8217;s only going to continue to get better and he&#8217;s gonna be a big, big piece moving forward for our group,&#8221; Coronato said.<\/p>\n<p>Coronato and Frost led the Flames last season with 45 and 43 points, respectively, while Gridin contributed 20 points in just 37 appearances.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Summer break is officially over \u2014 at least for select NHL stars. Connor McDavid, Brady Tkachuk, John Tavares,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":889471,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[433],"tags":[49,48,448,82],"class_list":["post-889470","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\/889470","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=889470"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/889470\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/889471"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=889470"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=889470"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=889470"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}