Luke Hughes is poised for a big sophomore season

Hughes flirted with 50 points in an almost underappreciated rookie campaign. Can he kick it up another gear in Year 2?

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There were some peaks and valleys in Luke Hughes’ rookie campaign. It’d be ignorant to suggest otherwise.

But, in a lot of ways, I think he was underappreciated for what he did in his first NHL season.

Hughes went from playing 40 games a year for Michigan to dressing in 82 for the Devils; and playing big minutes along the way.

He scored nine goals, flirted with 50 points, and was only -4 at 5v5 while playing for an injury-plagued team that couldn’t get a save for 85% of the season.

That is not normal for a rookie defenseman. That is not normal for a 20-year-old in his first season as a professional. And it feels as though it was treated as such anyway.

His body of work was taken for granted, in my estimation, because a) the Devils were a disappointment and; b) he’s a Hughes brother.

The bar Jack and Quinn have set for him to clear couldn’t be higher. Even so, I feel Luke is off to a good start.

What’s crazy is the context in which Hughes garnered the results he did.

The power play was constantly missing key pieces and couldn’t have been run much worse. From November onwards the Devils were about as effective as the Sharks in PP situations. Still nearly produced 50 points.

Hughes also spent far too much time with Brendan Smith. Realistically speaking, that duo couldn’t have played worse together.

Hughes and Smith combined to post a 38 xGF% and -13 goal differential (3 goals for, 16 goals against) as a pairing. Yet Lindy Ruff kept going back to it.

I’m not going to suggest Hughes played perfectly and everything that went wrong was due to Smith. I am going to suggest Smith weighed Hughes down greatly.