This is the 2024-25 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Luke Hughes
New Jersey Devils Defense
Forty-seven points and 21:28 a night at 20, and twelve goals of scoring that never arrived on his ice.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022-23 | NJD | 2 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 50.0 | 16:14 |
| 2023-24 | NJD | 82 | 9 | 38 | 47 | -25 | 28 | 4 | 0 | 1 | 135 | 6.7 | 21:28 |
| 2024-25 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 84 | 10 | 39 | 49 | -25 | 28 | 4 | 0 | 2 | 137 | 7.3 | 21:21 |
This Season So Far
The 2024-25 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
All 82 games, 9 goals and 38 assists for 47 points, 4 on the power play, 28 penalty minutes, 21:28 a night and minus-25. He took 51.9 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five over 1,391 minutes, the 67th percentile, and his ice went 51-53 against an expectation of 63.30-58.57.
Twelve goals of scoring that never arrived — the largest shortfall on the club — and six fewer conceded than the chances called for. At five-on-five his ice was minus-2; the minus-25 is special teams and empty nets, and it is the single most misleading number in this chapter.
The Finesse Game
135 shots at a median of 47 feet, with 4 per cent of his attempts from inside 20 and 66 per cent from beyond 40, converted at 6.7 per cent.
38 assists in 82 games. He is not a shooter and the chart says so; the whole of the offence is carrying the puck out of his own end and finding a forward in stride. Four per cent of his attempts from inside twenty is the lowest figure of any defenceman in this chapter.
The Physical Game
He is 6-2 and 198 and defends with feet and stick, and he is moved off pucks by men who are stronger.
28 penalty minutes in 82 games at twenty-one and a half a night is a very low rate for a 20-year-old on this workload. He does not clear the crease and he does not win many walls, and both of those are the reason for the minus-25 as much as the goaltending was.
The Intangibles
Fourth overall in 2021 out of Manchester, New Hampshire, two years at Michigan, two seasons, and 49 points in 84 games. His brother Jack is the first-line centre and his brother Quinn is in Vancouver.
He is 21 and played every game of a first full season at 21:28 a night. Forty-seven points is the most any defenceman aged twenty or under produced in this edition, and the defending will take three more years.
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.
- durable· was available
82 of 82 games
Season to season, this measure repeats weakly (0.32) · 53% keep it
“He is not a shooter and the chart says so; the whole of the offence is carrying the puck out of his own end and finding a forward in stride.”
“38 assists in 82 games.”
“He is 6-2 and 198 and defends with feet and stick, and he is moved off pucks by men who are stronger.”
“He is 6-2 and 198 and defends with feet and stick, and he is moved off pucks by men who are stronger.”
“He does not clear the crease and he does not win many walls, and both of those are the reason for the minus-25 as much as the goaltending was.”
“He does not clear the crease and he does not win many walls, and both of those are the reason for the minus-25 as much as the goaltending was.”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2023-24 · 1,391 minutes
- Expected goals
- 51.9%
- 67th pct
- Shot attempts
- 54.5%
- 87th pct
share of the chances while he was out there
share of the attempts while he was out there
Goals while he was on the ice: 51 for, 53 against. Expected: 63.3 and 58.6.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe two rank him within 10 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 652 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 71 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, 2023-24 · 82 games
- Top speed
- 24.2 mph
- 100th pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 2.43 a game
- Distance
- 3.29 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 92.8 mph
- 57th pct
fastest he was clocked all season; the league's average best is 21.7
how often he reaches that speed, not how fast he goes
skated, all strengths
one shot; the league's average best is 90.2
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
2023-24 · 1391 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, 2023-24
- The club
- NJD took 50.7% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 51.9% — 1.2 above the club he did it on.
- The role
- Third pair, 1,391 minutes at five-on-five — 93rd percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jack Hughes | 55.1% | 50.4% | 51.6% |
| Jesper Bratt | 59.0% | 48.7% | 55.3% |
| Dawson Mercer | 47.6% | 53.5% | 48.6% |
55.1% together, 50.4% for him apart and 51.6% for Hughes apart. Both were worse apart, so whatever the two of them had together was doing real work.
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
197 unblocked shots in 2023-24, 9 of them goals. His median goal came from 34 feet. 4% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 66% from beyond forty.