The New Jersey Devils open their 2025-26 season against the Carolina Hurricanes on Thursday night. Both teams are expected to be heavyweight contenders in the Metropolitan Division. Carolina has made the playoffs for the past seven seasons. The Devils have made it two of the past three.
What’s New Jersey’s biggest X-factor this season? That would be the health of Jack Hughes. Even Mike Morreale of NHL.com mentioned it as a major question for this upcoming season. The 2019 first overall pick has yet to play all 82 games in an NHL season. He did, however, play all 56 games of the shortened 2020-21 season. His season high in games was 78 in that magical 2022-23 season that saw the Devils finish with 112 points in the standings. Hughes would finish that year with 43 goals and 56 assists for 99 points.
The 2023-24 season would see him land on the injured list three times. First he injured his shoulder in November and would miss 16 games. That was followed by 11 games missed in January with an upper body injury. Finally, he would end the season in early April with his same nagging shoulder history. The Devils would miss the playoffs that season, with the two main reasons being subpar goaltending and the extensive injuries they dealt with.
Then the 2024-25 season saw Hughes end his season in early March after a shoulder injury he sustained in a game against the Vegas Golden Knights required season-ending surgery. He was unavailable for the team down the stretch and during their short playoff run, a five-game loss to the Carolina Hurricanes. Hughes participated in this year’s training camp and is healthy for the regular season. General manager Tom Fitzgerald said that Hughes' past injuries were on both shoulders.
Hockey Reference's odds for the 2024-25 season had the Devils set at 102.5 points, and they finished notably under that with 91 points. Does the health of Jack Hughes contribute to a nearly ten point swing in the standings? For what it’s worth, the Devils also dealt with a lengthwise injury to goaltender Jakob Markstrom last season that was partially negated by the four Nations Face Off break.
Hockey analytics have played with developing their own version of wins above replacement, “WAR” as the baseball folks like to call that. It’s an imperfect science since in hockey you get rewarded for an overtime loss. Advanced Hockey Stats gave Hughes a WAR of 4.2 games, which is roughly on point with what could be a 10 point swing. We compared that with Devils captain Nico Hischier is listed at a 5.5 WAR and fellow Devil Jesper Bratt has a 1.9 WAR. Both players really carried the extra offensive weight in Hughes absence last season.
When we look at what went wrong for the Devils last season two things stick out: bottom six production and the injury to Hughes. Those issues sort of go hand in hand, as the absence of Hughes from the lineup necessitated more goal scoring. The Devils signed Connor Brown and Evgenii Dadonov in free agency while Arseniy Gritsyuk finally comes over from the KHL. Those moves that will either bolster their bottom six or redistribute talent to bottom lines.
If Hughes can stay mostly healthy (missing a few games can be expected and is excusable) this Devils team should expect to replicate their success from the 2022-2023 season. The team showed resiliency when Hughes went down last season but most likely got bailed out by the fact their 91 points was good enough for third in the Metropolitian Division. A healthy Hughes and his presence in the playoffs is the difference between this team being a playoff contender and a strong cup contender.