Welcome back to NJ.com reporter Ryan Novozinsky. He dropped a bomb on New Jersey Devils fans on Friday, reporting what he knew about the Luke Hughes contract negotiations (link is beyond a paywall).
To not give away all of his reporting, Novozinsky learned that at one point, the Luke Hughes camp was looking to match his contract length with Jack Hughes. Meanwhile, the Devils were looking at two options: a three-year bridge deal or a full-term eight-year deal. What's unclear is when Luke Hughes's team was sitting on the five-year demand, but this is something we could have seen coming.
We've written about this option multiple times as something that should be off the table for the Devils. We recently polled Devils fans about whether they'd rather have the five-year option or extend the talks with a one-year deal. They overwhelmingly chose the five-year option.
We have to think that the full implications of this aren't known because the five-year option has to be as far off the table as possible. Luke Hughes is five years away from unrestricted free agency. So, a five-year deal would be buying every year of control the Devils have without the leverage of buying UFA years, as well.
We cannot oversell how terrible the decision to cave to Hughes's agent Pat Brisson would be. There is no decision this bad since the Devils drafted Pavel Zacha sixth overall in 2015. When the Devils drafted Zacha, Mikko Rantanen, Timo Meier, Zach Werenski, and Mathew Barzal were all on the board. The Devils took a guy who had injury issues and was suspended in his draft year.
Just to show everything that's happened since Pavel Zacha was drafted, Tom Fitzgerald giving Luke Hughes a five-year deal right now would be worse than the Ondrej Palat contract, picking Alexander Holtz in 2020, taking Simon Nemec over Logan Cooley, failing to fire Lindy Ruff to save the 2023-24 season, choosing to going into that same season with a Vitek Vanecek-Akira Schmid duo with no safety net, signing Corey Crawford who was ready to retire, taking Chase Stillman in the first round, trading for P.K. Subban, trading Blake Coleman, (breaths) giving an extension to Will Butcher, trading Adam Henrique for Sami Vatanen, adding Fabian Zetterlund in the Timo Meier trade, taking Ty Smith over K’Andre Miller, failing to re-sign Tyler Toffoli, and getting no top-six wingers this offseason.
The situation probably isn’t as dire as we’re making it out to be. The negotiations from Luke Hughes’s side are probably not “five years or nothing.” What’s more likely is the Devils are trying to stay around a certain number, and Brisson and Co. are only willing to go there if they match his contract with Jack Hughes’s. That’s totally fair if they perceive it as undervaluing the asset, but it’s time for Fitzgerald to stop pinching pennies and make the deal happen.
Even if this deal goes north of $9 million per season, it’s worth the risk because of the reward. Signing Luke Hughes to a five-year deal might get you Quinn Hughes, or he could sign for three years in Detroit, Vancouver, Vegas, or Toronto and allow all three brothers to become free agents at the same time.
So, instead of the dream of pairing the Hughes brothers in New Jersey, Devils fans would have to watch the Hughes brothers play elsewhere. All because Tom Fitzgerald gave Luke Hughes the nuclear option.