This is the 2025-26 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →

Jack Hughes

70 points in 62 games and a 56.3 per cent chance share, and a third season in four ended by his shoulder.

Season	Team	GP	G	A	PTS	+/-	PIM	PP	SH	GW	S	S%	TOI

2019-20	NJD	61	7	14	21	-26	10	4	0	2	123	5.7	15:52
2020-21	NJD	56	11	20	31	-3	16	1	0	1	142	7.8	19:04
2021-22	NJD	49	26	30	56	-16	0	6	0	2	165	15.8	19:34
2022-23	NJD	78	43	56	99	+10	6	9	0	6	336	12.8	19:58
2023-24	NJD	62	27	47	74	-12	12	9	0	4	274	9.8	20:58
2024-25	NJD	62	27	43	70	+12	18	6	1	7	229	11.8	20:54
2025-26 so far	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—	—
Career	—	368	141	210	351	-35	62	35	1	22	1269	11.1	19:25

This Season So Far

The 2025-26 season has not started. The empty row above is his, and both it and this paragraph fill in on their own from the morning after he first plays: what he has done, what it is worth against his own last season, and the run he is on when the two disagree.

Last Season

27 goals and 43 assists in 62 games for 70 points, plus-12, on 20:54 a night with 7 game-winners and 229 shots.

56.7 per cent at five-on-five, the 95th percentile — the best figure on the club. His on-ice goals were 50-35 against an expected 48.1-36.7. The season ended in March with shoulder surgery, which is the third of his six seasons cut short.

The Finesse Game

The skating is among the three or four best in the league and it is not straight-line speed — it is the ability to change direction at full pace with the puck, which means a defenceman who steps up is beaten and one who backs off gives him the zone.

229 shots in 62 games is an enormous volume and 11.8 per cent conversion is a fair rate; a third of them come from inside 20 feet. 43 assists in 62 games is the equal half and the vision is genuinely elite — he delivers into space rather than onto a stick and does it at speed.

The Physical Game

5-11 and 175, and among the lightest top-line centres in the league. He does not win pucks on the wall, does not go to the net front, and is separated from possession by any defenceman who gets a body on him.

18 penalty minutes over 62 games. The shoulder is the whole projection: two surgeries in four years, and a club that has now planned three seasons around a centre who has cleared 70 games twice.

The Intangibles

The 1st overall pick in 2019, six seasons, and a career that has been outstanding whenever the body has allowed it.

At 24 the hockey is not in question. A 94th-percentile chance share and 1.13 points a game is a genuine first-line centre. The reservation is availability and it is now a pattern rather than bad luck.

What kind of player

The searchable half of the report. The first group is computed from the season's own data; the rest are read out of the prose above, and each one carries the sentence that produced it. A subject the report never raised is simply absent.

measuredcomputed here from the season's own data
a strengthread out of the prose, and claimed
he lacks itraised, and he does not have it

Each computed tag also says how well its measure holds up from one season to the next, because a tag describes a season that has finished and a reader will assume it predicts the one coming. Some do and some do not, and the gap is wide: five-on-five workload repeats well, scoring late does not repeat at all.

drives-play· the shot clock turns his way while he is out there
56.7% of the expected goals at five-on-five with him on, 48.4% for his club in the minutes he sat: +8.3, 98th percentile among forwards
Season to season, this measure repeats moderately (0.39) · 29% keep it
workhorse· carries the load at even strength
15:36 a game at five-on-five, 98th percentile among forwards
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.78) · 58% keep it
sheltered· is started in the attacking end
70% of his end-zone starts in the attacking end, 99th percentile among forwards
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.66) · 47% keep it
transitiona strength· carries it out; gains the line under control
“it is the ability to change direction at full pace with the puck, which means a defenceman who steps up is beaten and one who backs off gives him the zone”
playmakera strength· passes up the shot a scorer takes
“43 assists in 62 games is the equal half and the vision is genuinely elite — he delivers into space rather than onto a stick and does it at speed.”
wins-the-wallhe lacks it· the corners and below the goal line
“He does not win pucks on the wall, does not go to the net front, and is separated from possession by any defenceman who gets a body on him.”
net-fronthe lacks it· lives in the blue paint; the screens and the tips
“He does not win pucks on the wall, does not go to the net front, and is separated from possession by any defenceman who gets a body on him.”
hard-to-movehe lacks it· cannot be shifted from where he decides to stand
“He does not win pucks on the wall, does not go to the net front, and is separated from possession by any defenceman who gets a body on him.”
edgesa strength· changes direction at speed; the forechecker commits and he is gone
“it is the ability to change direction at full pace with the puck, which means a defenceman who steps up is beaten and one who backs off gives him the zone”

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 967 minutes

Expected goals: 56.7%; 95th pct
Shot attempts: 55.3%; 92nd pct

Goals while he was on the ice: 50 for, 35 against. Expected: 48.1 and 36.7.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight

Report

93rd

Numbers

95th

The two rank him within 2 points of one another. It was written for a back edition, with the seasons that followed already known. Neither the agreement nor the gap says anything about the eye, and this report is excluded from the club-level comparison for the same reason.

Both bars are percentiles among the 637 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 82 on their own scale — against every other report's mean. The numbers bar ranks his share of expected goals. A gap is a disagreement about where he belongs, not two scales talking past each other.

Tracked

NHL Edge, 2024-25 · 62 games

Top speed: 23.3 mph; 95th pct
Bursts over 20 mph: 2.60 a game
Distance: 3.71 miles a game
Hardest shot: 86.3 mph; 54th pct

A top speed is a season's best, and a man who takes more shifts gets more tries at one; the percentile is the feed's own, against every skater, and says less between a top-pair defenceman and a fourth-line wing than it does between two men in the same job. The counts are shown per game for the same reason.

Usual linemates

2024-25 · 967 minutes at five-on-five

Share of his five-on-five ice time spent alongside each player, measured from shift charts. Special teams are excluded: a power-play unit is not a line.

Why the numbers land there

Five-on-five, 2024-25

The club: NJD took 50.7% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 56.7% — 6.0 above the club he did it on.
The role: Second line, 967 minutes at five-on-five — 56th percentile in ice time.

With and without

Teammate	Together	Him apart	Mate apart
Jesper Bratt	55.9%	59.4%	43.1%
Ondrej Palat	53.3%	63.0%	39.1%
Dougie Hamilton	56.0%	57.3%	47.4%

55.9% together, 59.4% for him apart and 43.1% for Bratt apart. He was carrying it: the share stayed with him and left Bratt behind.

Expected-goal share while both were on the ice, and for each man in the minutes he played without the other. Apart is the pair subtracted from his own totals. It does not settle who was carrying whom — apart from each other, both were still playing with somebody — but it does say whether the share travelled when the pairing broke up.

Where he shoots from

goal on goal missed

321 unblocked shots in 2024-25, 27 of them goals. His median goal came from 19 feet. 34% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 13% from beyond forty.