An interesting narrative is coming out of this offseason. The Hughes brothers have been front and center more often than not. Jack Hughes has been seen with his brother Quinn Hughes for weeks. They were together at the Morgan Wallen concert on Friday night, coming out together for his Michigan concert. They were seen together at the World Cup Final with Jessica Alba. They have been training together and have been spending every waking second together.Â
Much of that time, they are joined by Luke Hughes. The youngest of the Hughes brothers does not have the same name value as his brothers because of his status as a still-growing defenseman in this league. Luke Hughes has not earned the star status that comes with his contract.Â
Yet, the contract he signed is putting a bullseye on his back. Hughes signed a $9 million AAV deal in the middle of training camp last season. Because of his holdout, Hughes missed all of training camp and the preseason. That caused him to get a slow start to Sheldon Keefe’s second season. It was also Brad Shaw’s first season running the defense, so getting a late start on that coaching didn’t help.
Hughes was a mistake waiting to happen in the first three months. Something was just off with him. He didn’t have game-breaking speed that made him special. He wasn’t catching up with breakaways like he did the season prior. He couldn’t go end-to-end for massive goals. He looked… different.
Then, he got hurt. Once again, a Hughes brother suffered a shoulder injury. While this took him officially out of Olympic consideration, he was able to return when the Devils took the ice again in late February. And he looked different again, but in the best-possible way.Â
Hughes was fast again. He had flashes of superstardom, which is all you can ask for from a guy in his early 20s. For the first time all season, Luke Hughes looked like he had those glimmers of being a top defenseman again.
Then, he was shut down and had surgery, ending an overall forgettable season.Â
Overall, Hughes was not great. However, he’s not nearly as bad as some people think. According to Natural Stat Trick, Hughes was on the ice for 252 high-danger chances at even strength. Some of the guys in the same tier in terms of that stat include Aaron Ekblad, Simon Edvinsson, and Roman Josi. Those guys had 9.6, 8.7, and 9.7 on-ice shooting percentages at 5v5. Hughes’s was 7.5.Â
Luke Hughes would get a ton more slack with any other last name
Hughes was actually shooting as badly as he possibly could. He shot 3.45% at 5v5. If he just shot 9%, which is expected of a guy with his offensive acumen, he would have had 10 goals just at even strength last season. That doesn’t even include his power-play work.
Hughes got his contract because of his last name, but not all of it. Look at the deal Simon Nemec signed. Teams are paying for future performance now. We think Hughes gets at least $7 million if his name was Luke Johnson. They want to pay him that now so they don’t have to pay him $20 million or whatever his brother is going to make.Â
The Devils understand what they have in Luke Hughes. It’s more than one piece of the brothers' triumvirate. He’s a superstar in the making. There have been some bumps in the road, but we would take that as a defenseman learning the game if this was any other player. Cale Makar had his bumps, but the upside was always there.Â
We’re not saying Luke Hughes will ever be the best defenseman in the NHL. That’s no longer his trajectory, but he can be a very good number-one defenseman on the Devils. It could start as soon as next season.Â
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