Luke Hughes is finding out that a famous last name can cut both ways.
Around the NHL, the Hughes brothers have been everywhere this offseason. Jack Hughes and Quinn Hughes have been spotted together plenty, from the Morgan Wallen concert on Friday night in Michigan to the World Cup Final with Jessica Alba. They’ve been training together, too, and Luke Hughes has often been right there with them.
But Luke doesn’t carry the same kind of instant star value as his brothers yet, and that’s part of why his contract has turned him into a bigger target than most young defensemen. He signed a $9 million AAV deal in the middle of training camp last season after a holdout that cost him all of camp and the preseason.
That late arrival mattered. It slowed his start to Sheldon Keefe’s second season, and it also meant he was learning Brad Shaw’s defense on the fly in Shaw’s first year running the unit.
For the first three months, Hughes just looked out of sync. The burst that makes him dangerous wasn’t there.
He wasn’t closing on breakaways the way he had the year before, and the end-to-end rushes that can flip a game weren’t showing up. He looked different, and not in a good way.
Then came the shoulder injury, and with it another Hughes brother dealing with that kind of setback. The injury officially removed him from Olympic consideration, but he did return when the Devils got back on the ice in late February. That’s when the old version of Luke Hughes started to reappear.
He was fast again. The flashes of superstardom came back. For a stretch, he looked like a young defenseman who could eventually become something much bigger than just another good piece on the blue line.
Then the season ended with surgery, and the whole thing settled into what was, by any measure, a forgettable year.
Still, the numbers say he was not nearly as bad as the louder takes made him sound. Natural Stat Trick had Hughes on the ice for 252 high-danger chances at even strength, a group that puts him alongside players like Aaron Ekblad, Simon Edvinsson, and Roman Josi. The difference was in the finishing around him: those players posted 9.6, 8.7, and 9.7 on-ice shooting percentages at 5v5, while Hughes sat at 7.5.
His own shooting was rough, too. Hughes shot 3.45% at 5v5, which is about as cold as it gets.
If that number had been 9% - a more reasonable mark for a player with his offensive skill - he would have finished with 10 even-strength goals alone. That doesn’t even count what he can do on the power play.
The contract price reflects more than just the name on the back of the jersey, but the name is part of it. The Devils are paying for what they believe Luke Hughes will become, the same way teams are now paying for future performance before the bill gets even bigger.
The source of the deal matters, but so does the player. As the article points out, he’d probably be getting at least $7 million even if his name were Luke Johnson.
New Jersey knows exactly what it has here. Luke Hughes is more than just the third brother in the trio.
He’s still a superstar in the making, even if the road has had a few bumps. And if this were any other young defenseman, those bumps would probably be treated like part of the learning curve.
The ceiling is still there. He may not be on track to become the best defenseman in the league anymore, but he can still grow into a very good No. 1 for the Devils. That kind of step could come as soon as next season.
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