It's been a good few years since the Devils have had a legitimate #1 defenseman. Reasonably speaking, the last campaign in which New Jersey was set in that department was 2022-23, when Dougie Hamilton was still at his peak and putting up near-point-per-game numbers behind pristine underlying metrics. Since then, injuries and aging curves have played their parts in diminishing his effectiveness, even if he is still a borderline top-pair blueliner right now.
As such, and given that neither Luke Hughes nor Simon Nemec blossomed into a bona fide #1 defenseman as early as the Devils would have hoped one of them would have, it's been an area of need for New Jersey since.
The great news? Luke has (seemingly) finally arrived.
Thus far into the young season, the youngest Hughes brother has accumulated four goals and six total points while averaging a team-high 24:00 of ice time per game. From an underlying perspective, he has played to the tune of a 58.5% expected goal share (xGF%), which is good for 15th in the league among the 78 defensemen who have logged at least 200 minutes of 5v5.
Luke Hughes has been one of the better defensemen in the league this season
Hughes has been dynamic in the offensive zone, walking the blue line with the best of them and consistently finding space for himself and his teammates. In the neutral zone, he has been stalwart in defending against zone entries against and has dominated the transition game with the puck on his stick. Defensively, his gap control has been excellent, suffocating time and space from the opponent at every venture, and he has been able to be overwhelmingly successful in his zone exits.
By all accounts, the little things have all been adding up for the 23-year-old. Hughes has been lights-out in all facets of the game and is likely deserving of a couple more points as well -- the power play has not been producing as much as their underlying profile suggests. Some positive regression there, and Hughes' production will level out to the typical #1 defenseman. 60-plus points and superb underlying numbers are absolutely in the cards if things continue to roll along as they have been so far.
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