Armchair Hockey Scout Beta

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

86

Jack Hughes

New Jersey Devils Center

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

SeasonTeamGPGAPTS+/-PIMPPSHGWSS%TOI
2019-20NJD6171421-26104021235.715:52
2020-21NJD56112031-3161011427.819:04
2021-22NJD49263056-16060216515.819:34
2022-23NJD78435699+10690633612.819:58
2023-24NJD62274774-12129042749.820:58
2024-25NJD62274370+121861722911.820:54
2025-26 so far
Career368141210351-356235122126911.119:25

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.

56.3 per cent at five-on-five, the 94th percentile — the best figure on the club. His on-ice goals were 40-26 against an expected 46.2-35.8. 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.

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 967 minutes

Expected goals
56.3%
95th pct

share of the chances while he was out there

Shot attempts
55.2%
92nd pct

share of the attempts while he was out there

Goals while he was on the ice: 40 for, 26 against. Expected: 46.2 and 35.8.

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 357 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.

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 56.3% — 5.6 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

TeammateTogetherHim apartMate apart
Jesper Bratt55.6%59.0%43.1%
Ondrej Palat53.8%61.3%40.6%
Dougie Hamilton54.0%58.1%49.2%

55.6% together, 59.0% 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.