This is the 2025-26 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
Luke Hughes
New Jersey Devils Defense
44 points at 21 and 21:09 a night, and the second-best young defenceman in this edition.
| 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 | NJD | 71 | 7 | 37 | 44 | -9 | 16 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 121 | 5.8 | 21:09 |
| 2025-26 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 155 | 17 | 76 | 93 | -34 | 44 | 4 | 0 | 3 | 258 | 6.6 | 21:15 |
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
7 goals and 37 assists in 71 games for 44 points, minus-9, on 21:09 a night.
50.9 per cent at five-on-five, the 62nd percentile, over 1,228 minutes. His on-ice goals were 42-42 against an expected 50.2-48.5, so the finishing ran 8 goals against him.
The Finesse Game
The skating is exceptional and it is family-issue — long, effortless strides with genuine top speed, and the ability to carry a puck out of his own zone through the neutral zone without slowing.
37 assists in 71 games is a very high rate for a 21-year-old defenceman and it comes from the carry as much as the pass: he creates by arriving with the puck rather than by delivering it. 121 shots and 7 goals; the release is ordinary and the offence is not shot-based.
The Physical Game
6-2 and 198, and lean. He does not clear a crease and does not win board battles by force, and he defends the rush by matching pace rather than by ending it.
16 penalty minutes over 71 games is disciplined and it reflects a defenceman who is rarely beaten badly enough to reach. The defensive reads are a year behind the offensive ones.
The Intangibles
A 4th overall pick, a brother on the same club, and 44 points at 21 in top-pair minutes.
The projection is a genuine number-one defenceman. The comparison the league will make is to Lane Hutson, and the honest distinction is that Hughes has 36 more pounds and 4 fewer inches of margin for error.
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 1,228 minutes
- Expected goals
- 50.9%
- 62nd pct
- Shot attempts
- 51.9%
- 73rd 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: 42 for, 42 against. Expected: 50.2 and 48.5.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe 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 — 75 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 · 1228 minutes at five-on-five
- Brett Pesce72%
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 50.9% — 0.2 above the club he did it on.
- The role
- First pair, 1,228 minutes at five-on-five — 87th percentile in ice time.
With and without
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Brett Pesce | 52.7% | 46.0% | 51.1% |
| Timo Meier | 55.2% | 48.5% | 52.9% |
| Nico Hischier | 54.7% | 49.1% | 53.9% |
52.7% together, 46.0% for him apart and 51.1% for Pesce apart. He was worse away from Pesce, who was no better away from him — he needed that pairing more than Pesce did.
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
180 unblocked shots in 2024-25, 7 of them goals. His median goal came from 29 feet. 12% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 51% from beyond forty.