New Jersey Devils can't afford to be without Luke Hughes

The New Jersey Devils started off their Friday night about as terribly as they could. Unexpectedly, Luke Hughes felt something during warmups prior to their game against the Winnipeg Jets. This was after he missed the morning skate earlier in the day. Hughes, despite being dressed, was pulled from the lineup and replaced with Dennis Cholowski.

The Devils are calling it precautionary, but we can't really trust anything we hear about injuries until the team confirms what we're actually dealing with. Heck, we learned about Dougie Hamilton missing the rest of the regular season on a Kraken-Canucks podcast with Tom Fitzgerald. So, we'll take that precautionary with a grain of salt.

Meanwhile, the Devils are looking at a defensive unit that's missing it's top three players. Without Hamilton, Jonas Siegenthaler, and now Hughes, who even is the top player on that unit? Is it Brett Pesce? Maybe it's Johnathan Kovacevic. Nobody is going to argue this goes from one of the best units in the league when fully healthy to one of the worst as currently constructed.

Losing Luke Hughes would be something the New Jersey Devils can't recover from

That's why the Devils can't afford Hughes to be out long term. It's just one injury too many. The Devils are already dealing with too much. On top of the defensive injuries, they are still trying to recover from the loss of Jack Hughes after he got surgery on his shoulder again. We also believe that Jacob Markstrom is still recovering from his major knee sprain. Losing Luke Hughes would make this a roster that's not likely to win many games down the stretch.

We're trying to stay positive until we're told not to be. However, we saw what the Devils are with this current lineup. They got blitzed by the Winnipeg Jets, who scored two goals in the first two minutes of the game. That's going to be the reality of what they have in front of them if Hughes is out for more than, like, two games.