The New Jersey Devils are negotiating a new contract with Luke Hughes. Still. In the most surprising contract holdout of our era, the Devils are going through most of training camp and now the preseason without their young budding star defender.
The Devils are already without Johnny Kovacevic, who is dealing with a long-term knee injury. Now, they are going through training camp without two starters on defense. Luckily, the Devils have depth on defense, so it doesn’t even look that bad.
Simon Nemec deserves an opportunity to start, so giving him that while Kovacevic is out makes a ton of sense. The former second-overall pick could replace Luke Hughes in multiple aspects, including on the power play. Nemec isn’t nearly as dynamic as Hughes, but he is a risk taker that often leads to positive results with the man advantage.
At 5v5, the Devils have replaced Hughes with his college teammate Ethan Edwards. Hughes and Edwards both entered the University of Michigan as freshmen in 2021. They were teammates for two seasons, with both men playing as starters basically from the start of their college careers.
Hughes left college early to join his brother Jack Hughes with the Devils, but Edwards played all four years at Michigan. Many are excited about Edwards potential with the Utica Comets, but what if he can be something more than that? We’ve seen players surprisingly make the roster out of camp after expecting to go down to the AHL. Could Edwards do that right off the bat?
Devils head coach Sheldon Keefe doesn’t think it’s an insane notion. During Tuesday’s postgame press conference, he said that Edwards was relishing the opportunity.
"Obviously, that's Luke's spot, and Luke's not here, so there's an opportunity there to both have a young player to go into that spot that can benefit from that mentorship (from Brett Pesce), but also you need a player... He can skate with every player out there. In fact, he might be the best skating defenseman that we have."Sheldon Keefe on Ethan Edwards
That is high praise for a defenseman who many thought would use this training camp to show what he might be able to do in the future. Edwards is a decent prospect, but he's not even their top defensive prospect coming into training camp. Both Seamus Casey and Anton Silayev are ahead of him on all lists.
We need to take a step back and really look at what we're trying to say. The Devils cannot replace Luke Hughes with a rookie, Ethan Edwards. We're really happy that he's looked good to start the preseason. However, he's not Luke Hughes. He doesn't skate like Luke Hughes. His offense isn't remotely as good as Luke Hughes.
Edwards top offensive season at Michigan was 21 points. In his sophomore season, Edwards watched Hughes put up 48 points.
Can the Devils survive a week or two with Edwards paired with Pesce? It wouldn’t be the end of the world, but the Devils have an insane schedule to start the season. Do they really want to throw Edwards into the fire like that? It’s been a great start to his Devils career, but lets pump the brakes.