{"id":579761,"date":"2026-04-12T12:55:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-12T12:55:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/579761\/"},"modified":"2026-04-12T12:55:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-12T12:55:12","slug":"avalanche-sign-t-j-hughes-pro-hockey-rumors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/579761\/","title":{"rendered":"Avalanche Sign T.J. Hughes \u2013 Pro Hockey Rumors"},"content":{"rendered":"

With his college career complete, Michigan center\u00a0T.J. Hughes<\/a> was arguably the top player in this year\u2019s free agent class.\u00a0 He has found his next team as the Avalanche announced<\/a> that they\u2019ve signed him to a one-year, entry-level contract.\u00a0 The deal will begin next season; Hughes has signed a PTO with AHL Colorado for the remainder of 2025-26.\u00a0 PuckPedia reports (Twitter link<\/a>) that the agreement will carry a $952.5K cap charge with a $1.025MM AAV.\u00a0 That consists of an NHL salary of $850K, a signing bonus of $102.5K, and a $72.5K games played bonus.<\/p>\n

Hughes has been one of the top players in the NCAA in recent years.\u00a0 The 24-year-old came up just shy of a point per game in his freshman year at Michigan back in 2022-23, managing 36 points in 39 games.\u00a0 He surpassed that mark in his sophomore and junior seasons, putting up 48 and 38, respectively.\u00a0 That made him a popular speculative candidate to turn pro after each of those years but he opted to return to the Wolverines each time.<\/p>\n

That proved to be a good move for Hughes as he saved his best for last.\u00a0 He played in 40 games this season, picking up 22 goals and 35 assists, good for second in Division I scoring.\u00a0 Those efforts made him a finalist for the Hobey Baker Award for the top player in college hockey although that ultimately went to<\/a> Detroit prospect Max Plante<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Hughes is a nice pickup for the Avs who have seen their prospect and draft pick pools get depleted in recent years with their continued efforts to load up their NHL roster.\u00a0 Hughes was expected to have a strong enough market to really be selective about where he\u2019d land and he\u2019s chosen an organization that should be able to give him big minutes in the minors with the Eagles.\u00a0 While they\u2019ve recently shored up their center situation with the reacquisition of Nazem Kadri<\/a> and last year\u2019s pickup (and extension) of Brock Nelson<\/a>, there still could be room for Hughes to make the jump to the NHL as a winger.\u00a0 Either way, it\u2019s a nice addition to Colorado\u2019s prospect pool.<\/p>\n

Sportsnet\u2019s Elliotte Friedman was the first<\/a> to report the signing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With his college career complete, Michigan center\u00a0T.J. Hughes was arguably the top player in this year\u2019s free agent…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":545755,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[1223,10669,385,99,243490],"class_list":{"0":"post-579761","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-colorado-avalanche","9":"tag-newsstand","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-sports","12":"tag-t-j-hughes"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579761","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=579761"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/579761\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/545755"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=579761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=579761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=579761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}