What can the Canadiens expect from Kent Hughes?
What they haven't had for a while, according to those who know him best - a measured, level-headed approach to rebuilding a franchise that has become a tire fire
Fans of the Montreal Canadiens who were hoping Jeff Gorton would hire noted firebrand Patrick Roy as the franchise’s 18th GM are probably a little disappointed today. Or at least they should be. Because the guy Gorton chose, former player agent Kent Hughes, could not possibly be more the antithesis of Roy in almost every way.
Those who have worked with the bilingual native of Montreal say he is a level-headed, methodical consensus builder who prefers to operate quietly and without a lot of white noise. He doesn’t think he’s the smartest guy in the room, but often is. And the same approach he brought to negotiations for his NHL clients, he will bring to the other side of the table.
“He finds the good in everybody and he believes in a team approach,” said Paul Capizzano, an agent who until today worked alongside Hughes at the Quartexx Management agency. “One of the first things he ever told me was, ‘We’re never going to be successful if we’re not able to check your ego at the door.’ He’s not a self-promoter. He was never the kind of guy who would use the media (in negotiations) to get into a pissing match.”
It’s precisely for that reason that a lot of Canadiens fans may have responded to the hiring with a round of “Kent Who?” But Hughes is a hockey man through and through. He played the game at a fairly high level, starring for the Middlebury College Division III program in the early 1990s before graduating from Boston College’s law school. His brother, Ryan, was the first pick of the second round in 1990 (22nd overall by the Quebec Nordiques) and played three games for the Boston Bruins. Hughes has been an agent in the Boston area, where he and Gorton established their relationship. (Imagine that, two Boston guys running the bleu-blanc-rouge. Sacre bleu!) By all accounts, Hughes had a difficult time leaving the business he had created. And it’s easy to see why. According to www.puckpedia.com, Hughes had 21 NHL players among his clients with a total contract value of more than $290 million.
Veteran player agent Anton Thun has known Hughes since he represented Ryan as a player. The two of them joined forces in 2005 when Thun’s AKT Sports and Hughes’ Impact Hockey agencies merged and became MFive Sports, which was bought by the Saputo family-owned Quartexx Management in 2016. “Quite honestly, I went into business with Kent Hughes for the same reasons why Jeff Gorton would want to have him,” Thun said. “He’s intelligent, he understands the game, he understands the business of hockey and he’s a trustworthy person.”
That checks a lot of boxes. In fact, Thun said the trust factor between him and Hughes was so high that there was never an actual written agreement between the two. “We had a partnership for 11 years that was all based on trust. We agreed on what we were going to do verbally and we never had a document confirming that agreement over the 11 years. It was always, ‘We’ll split the revenues on this basis. We’ll exchange numbers at the end of the year and trust each other.’ ”
Which is all well and good, but the Canadiens currently sit in 32nd place in a 32-team league. There is so, so much to do. A season after going to the Stanley Cup final, the Canadiens are a mess. Salary cap hell is a decent place to be if you’re contending for a Cup, but it’s a terrible spot for a team this bad. There is a coach who will undoubtedly need to be fired, either soon or after the season. The trade deadline looms. And Hughes and Gorton will have to decide whether or not to continue to tank next season in the hopes of landing a generational talent such as Connor Bedard, Matvei Michkov or Adam Fantilli. That will require someone to do a lot more than just be able to communicate to the fan base in both of Canada’s official languages.
All of this will be done in tandem with Gorton. And while it’s probably not fair to say that they are sympatico on everything when it comes to hockey and team building, they are in their approach to those tasks. And when you’re this bad and there’s this much work to do, that’s probably what you need more than anything. “Jeff Gorton and Kent Hughes, as a management team, I believe, will have a very logical, well-thought-out reasoning for every decision they make,” Thun said.
Hughes’ approach to negotiating could best be illustrated by one of his most recent deals, the eight-year, $74 million extension for Edmonton Oilers defenseman Darnell Nurse that kicks in next season. Like everyone else, Hughes saw where the market was going for elite No. 1 defensemen and got in on the payday, but given the state of the Oilers’ blueline and the fact that Edmonton is not a prime free-agent destination, he probably could have easily demanded $10 million from the Oilers. Nurse could have held the Oilers hostage and created a bunch of drama this season, something that team doesn’t need one bit. So Hughes and Nurse did the deal, in lockstep every step of the way.
“At the end of the day, our job is to advocate for our clients, understanding the marketplace and to try to achieve the high end of that marketplace,” Thun said. “Some agents do that understanding the hockey world and what the marketplace is, having a logical approach to a negotiation and putting numbers on the table that are logical and can be substantiated. And I would suggest Kent is that type of agent. Other agents just throw sh—up against the wall. He’s not a sh—up against the wall kind of guy. Everything he does will be measured.”
After all the fecal matter that has hit the wall, and the fan, in Montreal this season, that would be a welcomed approach indeed.
ABOUT KENT HUGHES
What’s his hockey cred?
Growing up in Beaconsfield, Que., Hughes was a star as a minor hockey player. He was the third leading scorer for a Lac St-Louis Lions AAA midget team that included future NHLers Dominic Roussel, Eric Charron, Enrico Ciccone and Adrien Plavsic. In four years at Middlebury College, he scored 54 goals and 194 points and was captain in his senior year. In 2020, he was inducted into the Middlebury College Athletics Hall of Fame. His sons, Riley and Jack, whom he coached periodically with the Boston Jr. Eagles, are both playing at Northeastern University. Riley was a seventh-round draft pick of the New York Rangers in 2018, and Jack is a first-round prospect for the 2022 draft.
He won’t draft his own kid, will he?
Almost certainly not. Jack was recently rated seventh among North American prospects by the Central Scouting Bureau in its mid-season rankings. Barring a stunning turnaround by the Canadiens, they’ll be picking a lot higher than where Hughes’ son is projected to go.
How does this affect his current clients Patrice Bergeron and Kris Letang?
Both players are pending unrestricted free agents and both are Quebec natives, but don’t even go there. The prevailing notion is that Bergeron, who would look really strange in a Canadiens’ uniform anyway, will either retire after this season or come back on one of those short-term, low-money deals the Bruins are famous for executing. It’s probably a 50-50 proposition at the moment. As far as Letang, chances are he’ll re-sign in Pittsburgh as well. “If Kris gets a contract offer from Pittsburgh that he’s happy with, I’m almost certain he will stay in Pittsburgh,” said a source close to the situation. “If he doesn’t feel Pittsburgh is respecting him as a player, my guess is he would move on.”