As it stands right now, Jack Hughes, the New Jersey Devils' franchise cornerstone center, has the sixth-best odds to win the Hart Trophy, according to Covers. This gives Hughes the ninth-best odds to win the award, behind only the perennial frontrunners and slightly ahead of Avalanche defenseman Cale Makar.
While it may not seem like much, a preemptive top-ten ranking is certainly a nod to how excellent Hughes is as an individual talent, how important he is to the organization, and the likelihood that the Devils are going to be a playoff contender.
Of course, the initial takeaway from the preliminary odds is that the consensus opinion is that Hughes is a top-10 forward in the National Hockey League. It's the truth, too -- despite concerns about his overall ability to stay healthy (though it should be noted that his big injury in 2025-26 was a freak accident that shouldn't be called on as a slight against his health), he has always been a game-breaking center when available. He has a 99-point campaign under his belt and had an 82-game pace of 103 points this past season. That would have been good for fifth in the league, and he played a third of his games with effectively one hand.
Arguably, no player in the NHL was better after the Olympics than the Golden Goal scorer himself, cementing himself as an elite player among elite players.
Of course, the Hart odds also detail two things about the Devils themselves: 1) the team lives and dies by his performance, and 2) the consensus opinion is that they're a playoff-caliber team.
It should be no surprise that players at that level are the heart and soul of a team and their performance in the standings. As Sunny Mehta himself said, a Connor McDavid-less Oilers team would struggle, and a Sasha Barkov-less Panthers team struggled last season. It's obvious that the Devils would be a better team with their best player in the lineup, though Mehta has shored up the depth quite a bit this off-season.
Jack Hughes deserves to be in the Hart Trophy conversation when healthy
As for the team-wide outlook, the Hart Trophy almost always goes to a player whose team makes the postseason. Were the San Jose Sharks to make the playoffs in 2025-26, it would have been all but certain that Macklin Celebrini would have gone home with some hardware. Every player with better Hart odds than Hughes, with the exception of Celebrini and perhaps Auston Matthews, is on a consensus playoff-caliber team, though the Sharks' offense is set to evolve even further and Toronto did well to retool their roster after a tough season.
The Devils, at the very least, are considered a fringe playoff team. That's likely a big undersell, too, given that last season's performance was a direct product of team health and poor luck.
Regardless, Hughes' appearance in the top 10 of opening Hart Trophy odds should be a vote of confidence for both the player and the team heading into 2026-27.
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