The New Jersey Devils are putting together their best offensive combinations this preseason, with one of the biggest intiatives Sheldon Keefe must address being who plays alongside Jack Hughes and Jesper Bratt. They’ve tried Evgenii Dadonov, Arseny Gritsyuk, and Ondrej Palat so far. Dadonov seems to be the best connection, but there’s still time to play others and find their fit.
No matter who Hughes is paired with, there is one concerning trend. He is still too reliant on special teams.
Many Devils fans saw his play alongside Bratt on Sunday where they went 2-on-0 and failed to score. Still, making the play was exactly why we want Hughes and Bratt together. The issue is this came on the penalty kill. That high-danger chance meant that Hughes had more high-danger chances on the PK than he had at even strength.
Jack Hughes needs to score more at 5v5
That’s because, according to Natural Stat Trick, Hughes has zero high-danger chances at 5v5 this preseason. We get it; it’s just the preseason. This isn’t necessarily an indicator of what’s going to happen during the season. But this isn’t a star like Connor McDavid or Nathan MacKinnon, who largely know who they are paired with to start the year. The Devils are testing things out.
Also, the Devils had trouble scoring at 5v5 last season. According to Natural Stat Trick, the Devils had 149 goals in 2024-25 outside of special teams. That’s 26th in the league. Straight up, that’s not good enough for a team this talented. They had one 5v5 goal fewer than the Chicago Blackhawks.
Hughes himself had 16 5v5 goals last season. That’s tied for 57th in the league. He matched the output of guys like Will Cuyle, Brett Howden, Adam Gaudette, and his teammate Timo Meier.
We understand that Hughes did miss 20 games last season, so he should have been higher on the list, but we need more than 20 5v5 goals from Hughes.
The Devils were way too reliant on special teams last season, and that severely hurt them in the playoffs. The power play went scoreless in their five-game loss to the Carolina Hurricanes, the only team in the NHL without a PP goal in the playoffs. Hughes wasn’t there for that, but it’s still a lesson he should learn. Goals count the same whether it’s 5v5, on the power play, or the penalty kill, but one of those options is infinitely easier to repeat in the postseason.