Hughes on his relationship with Matheson:
I've known Mike since his days in Midget AAA. He's a first-class human being. He's the kind of guy you'd let marry your daughter, although he's married with a young baby at this point in his life. He's a terrific human being. Mike is a player who's always had a lot of potential. I know back in his time, Dale Tallon thought he would become the Duncan Keith in Florida because of his skating. Mike's time in Florida was marked with success, and probably some challenges as well. Then when he got into an environment that was more conducive for him, we really started to see his game go. I spoke with Kris Letang at length about Mike before we did this trade, and Kris was disappointed to see him leave, but he was very, very positive in terms of who Mike is and what he can be as a hockey player.
Hughes on shipping Poehling to the Penguins:
Having Ryan be part of the deal, for them, they felt they needed a little depth at center given that their middle of the ice is certainly older. It provides them with that security. With the acquisition on our part of Kirby Dach, we're pretty comfortable at this point in time with what we have in the middle of the ice with Nick Suzuki, Christian Dvorak and Jake Evans. We had a lot of forwards on one-way deals, and with Ryan leaving, we felt it freed us up to bring Rem Pitlick back, who we liked a lot, at a number that we felt was manageable.