The New Jersey Devils took the good vibes from a 7-1 drubbing of the New York Rangers and disintegrated them on Saturday afternoon, losing 4-2 to their division rival, the Washington Capitals. The away game started strong, but a disastrous second period threw any chance of a win out of whack.
Jake Allen had a rough start, and the defense had a devastating five-minute stretch where they left their inefficient goalie out to dry. It was a deadly combination.
Much came from this loss. Timo Meier scored his first goal of the season. While it was ultimately useless to the final score, getting him off his scoreless streak to start the season was important. The top lines still struggled to put pucks in the net, and the power play is not playing well. Arseny Gritsyuk continued to look great on the top line, but it might be time to have a conversation about Jesper Bratt.
Speaking of Gritsyuk and Bratt, the conversation after the game centered on Jack Hughes, at least for the national hockey fan. Specifically, one play had a lot of people raising eyebrows. Frankly, the conversation is insane.
Jack Hughes made a BUSINESS DECISION shooting quick instead of going wide to the backhand with Tom Wilson coming across 😭😭😭 pic.twitter.com/6i7z9w4GuG
— B/R Open Ice (@BR_OpenIce) October 17, 2026
Jack Hughes avoided an unnecessary hit that would have negated a scoring play for the New Jersey Devils
As you can see, Hughes was skating in on Logan Thompson with known headhunter Tom Wilson coming in for the big hit. Hughes shot the puck quickly without looking where it was going, and he fell to the ice.
The optics of this probably show that Hughes was afraid of getting laid out, and that’s probably part of it. “Afraid” is probably the wrong word, but the risk-reward analysis in that moment was assessed to be low. It was very unlikely that Wilson closing in would allow Hughes the space to make a goal-scoring move, and the risk of whatever Wilson had planned wasn’t worth it.
No player was scoring on this play. Hughes is still one of the fastest players in small spaces, and he knew he didn’t have the time or space to make the right play. Hockey is a game of “better luck next time” since it’s so fast and so many chances happen in one game.
If Wilson wasn’t coming, the danger of this chance would go up 10 notches. That wasn’t the reality of the situation, and criticizing Hughes for his decision often comes with a level of bias.
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