Player Spotlight: Luke Hughes (100th Game)

-

As Luke laces up for his 100th NHL game tonight, I thought it would be fitting to write my first player spolight about his development and season so far. Entering the 24-25 season, Devils fans were excited to see the steps that Luke Hughes would make going into his second full professional season. Just over a month before the season started, it was reported that Luke had suffered a shoulder injury that would

Photos by Derek Cain/Getty Images
sideline him for 6-8 weeks. His season debut would come on the 11th game of the season with his defensive partner Brett Pesce. The team has gone on to have a record of 10-4-1 since his return. Through the 15 games he has 0 Goals and 4 assists which has brought on negative comments from those who do not watch the Devils on a regular basis. A huge reasoning for this decrease in offence can be boiled down to a few factors:



A. Returning from Injury: If we look at Dougie, he struggled to start the year with 4 points in his first 10 games. Now that Dougie is getting back into the groove of the game, he has 10 points in the last 10 games. I think Luke will start to turn the corner and produce at a higher level.

B. No More PP1: Last season Luke was thrown into being the Quarterback of PP1 after Dougie went down. This year he has been put on the second unit and has not been able to get much powerplay time since the first unit has been dominating and are either scoring or being on the ice for almost three quarters of the power play.
C. Defensive Depth: With Fitzys offseason additions, the Devils have one of the deepest defensive units in the league. Pesce & Luke are currently this teams third defensive pairing but would be a top 1 or 2 pair on every other team in the league. With this type of depth, it eats into the ice time he sees every night.

Photos by Dave Reginek/Getty Images


While his offensive numbers have gone down, he has made tremendous leaps defensively compared to last season at 5 on 5 game. Last season while Luke was on the ice the opposing team generated 54.2 Shot Attempts Against, 3.2 High Danger Attempts Against & 2.67 Expected Goals Against per 60. This season has seen improved numbers so far with 48.83 Shot Attempts Against, 1.12 High Danger Attempts Against & 1.92 Expected Goals Against per 60. On top of stepping up his defensive skills, Luke took the off-ice conditioning seriously this past offseason. He jumped his weight up 14 pounds from the 184lbs that he was listed at last season to 198lbs. This has allowed Luke to knock players off pucks and clear the crease with more ease than last season. Even with this added weight he has been able to keep his speed on the ice, with an average speed of 22.67 MPH with is in the 95th percentile and having 23 speed bursts over 20 MPH which is in the 90th percetnile. This are both haev slighlty dropped from last season. His biggest drop in the NHL Edge advanced stats is his shot % going from a 9.7% to his current percetnage of 0. To me this shows that the goals will come soon and when they do he will go on a little run of scoring to get that percetnage closer to around 5%. 

Photos by John McCreary/Getty Images

A player’s development is not a linear path, there will be highs and lows early on in their career but is important for the player to control the controllables and continue to get better every day. Luke will gain more time on the top pairings and on the first powerplay unit as his career continues which will lead to a bump in offensive numbers. The work he has put in to develop into a strong defensive player so early in his career will pay dividends later as he faces off against teams’ top lines. The first 100 games of Lukes career have been exciting to watch with his first NHL goal vs the Capitals or his end-to-end goal against Columbus last season. I cannot wait to watch his game continue to grow and see what he can accomplish over the next 100.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Got a Guy for That Ft. Nico Hischier

-
Image
  Photos by Rich Graessle/Getty Images Last night the Devils laid down their most dominate win of the season vs. the Predators with the trusted "Deserve to Win O'Meter" provided my Money Puck give us our highest percentage of the season at 92%. Not only did this team assert themselves offensively against Nashville, but they also refused to be pushed around and controlled the defensive/physical side of the game as well. The player who leads the charge with this mentality last night was the captain, Nico Hischier. Before his second goal of the night, Lauzon threw Nico down to the ice behind the play after they were tangled up in a net front battle. Instead of retaliating for a penalty or staying to the perimeter of the zone for the remainder of the powerplay, Nico waited patiently, drove to the net hard and ripped an absolute howitzer top shelf then stared down Lauzon. This mentality of toughness, togetherness & grit has infected the lineup and is creating something spe...
Read more

Game #19 vs FLA - Showdown in Sunrise

-
Image
The first eighteen games of the season have been a rollercoaster for this Devils team looking to reassert themselves as one of the top teams in the league. There has been no better example of this than the team last three games. Over the weekend they showed us that no lead is safe with a comeback victory against the Islanders and no team should be taken lightly with a shutout loss to the Sharks. The Devils headed down to Sunrise, Florida to face-off against the defending champions who have been red hot, winning 7 straight.  It was announced pretty who would take the crease in last nights matchup which lead many fans to debate who should be getting the bulk of the current workload. Going into last night’s game Allen had the slight advantage with a 2.35 GAA & .914 SV% compared to Markstroms 2.67 GAA & .902 SV% and has been more consistent. Keefe and Fitz went with the big offseason acquisition and his ears must have been itching all day, because he went out and quieted the ...
Read more

Devils Tendy Trends

-
Image
  Trigger Warning: We will be discussing last years Goaltending With nearly a quarter of the season gone after tonight’s game vs Florida, I wanted to do a deep dive into the improvements of our goaltending situation compared to last year. After last season I think our fanbase suffers from some serious PTSD when it comes to our goaltending (rightfully so, last year was a tough pill to swallow). Below I will be comparing the overall stats through the first nineteen games, looking into the underlying advanced stats thanks to the NHL EDGE analytics and give my thoughts on improvements Markstrom & Allen could make.                       Team Goaltending Stats Through 19 games                                            2023          ...
Read more