Sheldon Keefe is going into his third season as head coach of the New Jersey Devils. During the offseason, new GM Sunny Mehta committed to Keefe as the head coach, but he worked with him to revamp the coaching staff, including bringing in former Harvard head coach Ted Donato.
Training camp has obviously been important for Keefe. He is trying to implement a new system and has revamped the coaching staff pretty much every year. Last season, he got rid of Ryan McGill and replaced him with former Philadelphia Flyers interim head coach Brad Shaw.
Luke Hughes missed training camp for both these major changes to the defensive system. Keefe wants a completely different responsibility from his defensemen than Lindy Ruff did. Ruff wanted a run-and-gun system that was started by the blue line. Keefe wants a more responsible defenseman to play.
This is something Luke Hughes needs to ease into. Unfortunately, he missed all of training camp in 2024 with a shoulder injury, and he missed almost all of training camp last season while he was negotiating his long-term contract.
That means Hughes is 0-for-2 on training camps with Sheldon Keefe. He has not been there for the most important practices of the year. The Devils are trying to establish something that will set the standard for the rest of the season.
Hughes’s season ended with yet another shoulder injury and surgery. The worry was that this was going to be another instance of Hughes missing at least part of training camp, especially when we’ve seen so many videos of Quinn Hughes and Jack Hughes training together. Heck, we even saw Quinn Hughes carrying a Devils training bad at the airport, which we assume was his younger brother’s bag.
But on Thursday, we got some good news. Hughes is on the ice, and he doesn’t look like anything is holding him back.
🎥| Luke Hughes for power_edge_pro #lukehughes #hockey pic.twitter.com/0GFXTFQxAB
— 𝙃𝙪𝙜𝙝𝙚𝙨 𝙐𝙥𝙙𝙖𝙩𝙚𝙨. (@hughessdaily) August 27, 2026
Luke Hughes was seen skating after shoulder surgery ended his 2025-26 season
It’s a beautiful sight to see Luke Hughes skating with such fluidity. He’s on the ice prior to the season starting. That’s exactly what we needed to see to be confident in the player we’re going to see this season.
Frankly, Hughes was not good last season. We have a sneaky suspicion that missing training camp and playing zero preseason games got him off on the wrong foot, and he was playing catch up all season. It led to a lost season for the Devils future on the blue line. He missed out on the Olympics, the Devils missed the playoffs, and his future is in question.
Playing the entire preseason and training camp and setting the season off on the right foot. Or in this situation, skate.
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