11 Thursday, June 28, 2018 The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com SPORTS AMELIA CACCHIONE / DAILY Freshman defenseman Quinn Hughes was drafted 7th overall by the Vancouver Canucks in the NHL Draft after a breakout year Quinn Hughes taken 7th by Canucks The past year has been a wild ride for Quinn Hughes. As the youngest player in college hockey last season, the 18-year- old freshman defenseman helped lead the Michigan hockey team — 13-game winners the season prior — to the Frozen Four, all the while wowing Wolverines fans and NHL scouts with his electrifying skating and puck- handling ability. Soon, the ride will take him to Canada. On Friday night in Dallas, Texas, Hughes was selected by the Vancouver Canucks with the 7th pick in the 2018 National Hockey League Draft. Hughes is the highest Michigan draftee since defenseman Jack Johnson was taken third overall by the Carolina Hurricanes in 2005 and is also the second defenseman chosen in this year’s draft after Rasmus Dahlin, who went to the Buffalo Sabres with the No. 1 overall selection. Joining Hughes in attendance at the American Airlines Center was his entire family, including his brothers Jack — a candidate to be next year’s top NHL draft pick — and Luke, who recently committed to Michigan for 2022. Hughes’ parents were both hockey players as well — father Jim at Providence and mother Ellen at New Hampshire. After Hughes was drafted, he spoke to NBCSN’s Kathryn Tappen about the impact of his mother, who taught him how to skate when he was little. “It’s always nice to have parents that know what they’re doing,” he said. “It always makes a difference. I’m obviously grateful to both of them — my mom knows a lot about the game, like I said, I’m grateful.” Just about every mock draft had Hughes as a top-10 pick, with the most common projections coming in the No. 4-No. 8 range. Considering his skills and production last season, these projections made sense. Hughes’ standout trait is his skating — many outlets have called him the best pure skater in his class. Blessed with terrific speed and acceleration, he’s a terror in transition, and his puck- handling and passing allow him to quarterback an offense from the blue line effectively. His elite skating does come with a cost — at just 5-foot- 9, Hughes lacks the size many desire from a defenseman and can be outmuscled at times. But he compensates for it with superior awareness and savvy anticipation, and pairing him with a larger, more physical blue- liner — such as his partnership with Joseph Cecconi last season — neutralizes many of Hughes’ weaknesses. Hughes’ talent culminated last season into five goals and a team-high 24 assists, as well as selections to the All-Big Ten Second Team and All-Freshman Team. After Michigan’s season came to an end, he was named to the United States national team at the World Championships as the only college player on the roster, contributing to a bronze- medal finish for the Americans. It’s not yet clear what Hughes’ next move will be. Most analysts believe he’s in need of at least one more year of in college in order to get stronger and develop his defensive game. His performance with Team USA, however, hints that he isn’t far off from being NHL-ready. But for now, Hughes seems to just be enjoying it all. “Obviously, I’m very proud,” Hughes said. “I’ve heard a lot of great things about Vancouver, it’s obviously a hockey market. I’m really excited, and it’s a dream come true. Honestly, I don’t know what to say right now.” JAKE SHAMES Daily Sports Writer “I’m really excited, and it’s a dream come true.” Read the full story at MichiganDaily.com Focus on fundamentals helps Conry in first year On the surface, it’s not immediately obvious what drew Kevin Conry to coach the Michigan men’s lacrosse team. He came to Ann Arbor after spending five years as the defensive coordinator at Maryland. In his five years, the Terrapins won the Big Ten Tournament five times and reached the Final Four of the NCAA Tournament four times — including winning the National Championship in 2017. In the five years before Conry joined the Wolverines, Michigan notched just one win in the Big Ten and one winning season. That’s a big leap for any coach to make — a perennial powerhouse to a team still trying to find consistent wins. It’s an even bigger leap when you’re going to your first head coaching job. “I think when you’re in this business, you want to be a head coach, but you don’t want to sacrifice an option to be ahead of the pack and be a part of a winning organization,” Conry said. “I was an assistant at Maryland. We were going to Final Fours, just coming off a championship, so it was very easy for me to stay there. “But when you look at Michigan, all that it had academically, in the Big Ten conference which is the best lacrosse in the country, coupled with all of the facilities that are available and that were gonna come online in a very short amount of time, it was a no-brainer for me.” Conry’s first season at the helm was a bit of a rollercoaster— as is to be expected for a young team and a new coach learning together. Culture change is not a process that happens overnight, though Conry is quick to point out that he was merely building on the foundation left by the previous coaching staff. But new coaches bring new philosophies, and Conry has been steadfast in his since Day 1. “It was about having 46 guys buy into an idea and a plan and a process,” Conry said. “Every day — we certainly had our rollercoaster ride of a full season — but we had guys who wanted to be great, wanted to buy in, and wanted to have the success on the field and off the field. We just helped them to find the way, and once they started to understand how to do it, it started to become habit. And that’s what we really wanted, to just trust the process, get better every day. Culture will come when they understand and when they buy in.” Creating a team that trusted his process and was willing to work was Conry’s top priority in his first year. After all, it’s hard to have high expectations of a team that has only had one previous winning season. “I knew we had to just continually get better,” Conry said. “I didn’t really have many expectations per se, I just wanted us to focus on the process and say, ‘Every day, let’s just get a little bit better, and then we’ll worry about the wins and losses when they come.’ ” Despite the lack of expectations, Conry led the Wolverines to arguably their most successful season in history. Michigan started 5-0 at home — a program record. One of their two non-conference losses came against Yale, the eventual national champions. The Wolverines went on the road to then-No. 4 Notre Dame and won, earning Michigan’s first top-five win and first road win over a ranked opponent in program history. But the Big Ten is one of the most competitive conferences in collegiate lacrosse — on multiple occasions during the season, all six teams were ranked inside the top 20. Though the Wolverines had found success in non- conference games, Big Ten play brought growing pains and the first real tastes of adversity. MEN’S LACROSSE BAILEY JOHNSON Daily Sports Writer