Prospect Info: #1: Jack Hughes (C): Fired Up Edition

[JimEIV]

Good thing hockey players are allowed to have careers longer than 1 season.

Not sure what this means? "Ok, this season is a disaster we'll get'em next year"...

Is that what you are saying?

 

[TrufleShufle]

Not sure what this means? "Ok, this season is a disaster we'll get'em next year"...

Is that what you are saying?

I would wager it's more like, he has an entire career ahead of him with plenty of time to improve.

It's only a disaster if you disregarded every expert who said, "he most likely won't have a big impact in his first maybe even second year, but he will turn into a massive force when he learns to play his game at an NHL level."

 

[Triumph]

They are bad. Very Bad. I am not sure how to see it any other way....
Please convince me otherwise. I would really like to believe this isn't a problem.

He is on a 32 point pace now. I am honestly not sure how that can be viewed as anything but disaster?

Jack Hughes is shooting 7%. Here's a list of players who shot 7% or lower for their careers in the Corsi era.

Jack Hughes's on-ice shooting percentage is 6.7%. Here's a list of players who have on-ice shooting percentage at that or lower in the Corsi era.

Jack Hughes will be fine. He's already making positive impacts and he's going to be 18 this entire season.

 

[JimEIV]

Staal Stamkos Parise Daisaitl Nash etc etc etc etc etc etc etc all with first seasons well below .5 ppg. They turned out fine.

Jack will be fine.

Parise doesn't belong in this conversation. He wasn't a #1 overall and he was 21 years old his rookie season...But I do get what you saying that things can turn out fine after rough rookie year...But here is what I would say to that from my observations...

You can find some examples of lower numbers in Rookie seasons that turn out ok..But they are typically big goal scorers like Nash and Stamkos who took a little bit of time to find their goal scoring touch. Parise somewhat. Even in Stamkos' case he was scoring goals at an incredible pace at the end of his rookie season...But Parise, Nash and Stamkos are guys had incredible jumps in Goals from year one to year two.

Nash 17 to 41
Stamkos 23 to 51
Pasrise 14 to 31

I don't see Hughes as that type of player. That is the goal scorer who pushes 50 or more goals.. I don't see Hughes as ever being a huge goal scorer honestly.

Hughes game should be making players around him better...That is his path to stardom and I am really not seeing that.

 

[NjDevsRR]

Parise doesn't belong in this conversation. He wasn't a #1 overall and he was 21 years old his rookie season...But I do get what you saying that things can turn out fine after rough rookie year...But here is what I would say to that from my observations...

You can find some examples of lower numbers in Rookie seasons that turn out ok..But they are typically big goal scorers like Nash and Stamkos who took a little bit of time to find there goal scoring touch. Parise somewhat. Even in Stamkos' case he was scoring goals at an incredible pace at the end of his rookie season...But Parise, Nash and Stamkos are guys had incredible jumps in Goals from year one to year two.

Nash 17 to 41
Stamkos 23 to 51
Pasrise 14 to 31

I don't see Hughes as that type of player. That is the goal scorer who pushes 50 or more goals.. I don't see Hughes as ever being a huge goal scorer honestly.

Hughes game should be making players around him better...That is his path to stardom and I am really not seeing that.

Lmao, cmon man. That list obviously wasn’t comprised of only first overalls, you should know that. I just took a bunch of top forwards out of a hat and looked at their first seasons. Draft positioning is irrelevant. All talented players today (or were), all had below .5 ppg first seasons, all turned out fine.

Also the point about Parise being 21 makes Jack even look better since he is a YOUNG 18 year old. He turns 19 in May.

 

[TrufleShufle]

Parise doesn't belong in this conversation. He wasn't a #1 overall and he was 21 years old his rookie season...But I do get what you saying that things can turn out fine after rough rookie year...But here is what I would say to that from my observations...

You can find some examples of lower numbers in Rookie seasons that turn out ok..But they are typically big goal scorers like Nash and Stamkos who took a little bit of time to find there goal scoring touch. Parise somewhat. Even in Stamkos' case he was scoring goals at an incredible pace at the end of his rookie season...But Parise, Nash and Stamkos are guys had incredible jumps in Goals from year one to year two.

Nash 17 to 41
Stamkos 23 to 51
Pasrise 14 to 31

I don't see Hughes as that type of player. That is the goal scorer who pushes 50 or more goals.. I don't see Hughes as ever being a huge goal scorer honestly.

Hughes game should be making players around him better...That is his path to stardom and I am really not seeing that.

Well if even players like Bratt are surprised by passes to them by him, this whole making team mates around him better, falls flat.

As soon as the players around him learn that if they are open and Jack has the puck, put your damn stick on the ice and expect the puck to come your way we will start to see better results.

Him and Caufield played together for like 3 years on the same line, Caufield obviously learned this, It shouldn't take this long, but whoever he plays with will hopefully learn it as well.

 

[Azathoth]

Parise doesn't belong in this conversation. He wasn't a #1 overall and he was 21 years old his rookie season...But I do get what you saying that things can turn out fine after rough rookie year...But here is what I would say to that from my observations...

You can find some examples of lower numbers in Rookie seasons that turn out ok..But they are typically big goal scorers like Nash and Stamkos who took a little bit of time to find their goal scoring touch. Parise somewhat. Even in Stamkos' case he was scoring goals at an incredible pace at the end of his rookie season...But Parise, Nash and Stamkos are guys had incredible jumps in Goals from year one to year two.

Nash 17 to 41
Stamkos 23 to 51
Pasrise 14 to 31

I don't see Hughes as that type of player. That is the goal scorer who pushes 50 or more goals.. I don't see Hughes as ever being a huge goal scorer honestly.

Hughes game should be making players around him better...That is his path to stardom and I am really not seeing that.

When you are an teenager and its your job to make the players around you better, and said players are the 2019-2020 New Jersey Devils, yeah you are not going to look like the second coming of Crosby. Hughes was never supposed to be a guy that could come in and completely transform your franchise around. McDavid couldn't really even do that and Hughes is not ever going to be McDavid. He will, however, be fine.

 

[JimEIV]

When you are an teenager and its your job to make the players around you better, and said players are the 2019-2020 New Jersey Devils, yeah you are not going to look like the second coming of Crosby. Hughes was never supposed to be a guy that could come in and completely transform your franchise around. McDavid couldn't really even do that and Hughes is not ever going to be McDavid. He will, however, be fine.

Was never looking for the second coming of Crosby or McDavid...But I certainly didn't expect Hughes being on pace for the worst point production from an 18 year old #1 overall since Patrick Stefan either.

 

[Blender]

So a lot of people spent all offseason saying Hughes wasn't ready and would be a 30-40 point player this year while he adjusts to the speed and Suze of the NHL. Most of the same people who were saying that have now shifted their argument to claiming that this level of performance is a huge disappointment and a disaster.

I'm confused by this HF logic.

 

[JimEIV]

So a lot of people spent all offseason saying Hughes wasn't ready and would be a 30-40 point player this year while he adjusts to the speed and Suze of the NHL. Most of the same people who were saying that have now shifted their argument to claiming that this level of performance is a huge disappointment and a disaster.

I'm confused by this HF logic.

I said he wasn't ready for sure. I said that repeatedly during the World Championships. I don't think I ever assigned a point total to that though. I don't think I would've ever expected a 30 point season from #1 overall center...Especially since that hasn't happened in over 20 years.

 

[Call Me Al]

i expect hughes' point totals to go up now that he's going to get a lot more pp1 time with hall gone

 

[Call Me Al]

also, this can't be stressed enough but the team has been terrible, all around, and everyone's numbers will hopefully go up if they keep playing like the past 2 games

 

[JimEIV]

also, this can't be stressed enough but the team has been terrible, all around, and everyone's numbers will hopefully go up if they keep playing like the past 2 games

I think calling the team terrible (which it absolutely is) is a misdirection play...

How many #1 overall's don't go to terrible teams? You pick number #1 for a reason...And with this new lottery we aren't even as bad as some other teams have been in the past...We came from 5 to #1 this year I believe?

All #1's are coming into situations that have difficulties. Your number #1 is supposed to help make that better...And that is the entire point, Hughes has not.

 

[Call Me Al]

this team wasn't supposed to be bad though - it was a playoff team that had a rash of injuries and bad goaltending that sunk them last year but by and large they had a good enough roster to compete. this year just had terrible coaching and players not living up to their potential, it's a terrible environment for a 1st overall.

but if you use your eyes and not the stat sheet you can look at hughes and see that there is a lot of talent there and once he figures out the league and gets some more muscle he is going to be very very good. im not really worried about him at all.

 

[Call Me Al]

he's an undersized, young 18 year old being thrown into a toxic team environment with a bad coach and an elephant in the room regarding the star player's free agency and now impending trade. the kid has a crazy amount of talent and is already the best skater on the team

 

[TrufleShufle]

I said he wasn't ready for sure. I said that repeatedly during the World Championships. I don't think I ever assigned a point total to that though. I don't think I would've ever expected a 30 point season from #1 overall center...Especially since that hasn't happened in over 20 years.

So you yourself said he wasn't ready, but are now surprised that he isn't putting up points?

 

[JimEIV]

this team wasn't supposed to be bad though - it was a playoff team that had a rash of injuries and bad goaltending that sunk them last year but by and large they had a good enough roster to compete. this year just had terrible coaching and players not living up to their potential, it's a terrible environment for a 1st overall.

but if you use your eyes and not the stat sheet you can look at hughes and see that there is a lot of talent there and once he figures out the league and gets some more muscle he is going to be very very good. im not really worried about him at all.

I think we might be just saying different things with different expectations. I don't think the eye test is enough in this situation. I don't think the expectation should be just a good player in this instance either. I also think a player like Hughes entire value is the stat sheet. This needs to be a building block player in my view. And I worry that #1 overall on 32 point pace might not be able to be a building block type player...32 points is terribly low that is worrisome to me.

 

[JimEIV]

So you yourself said he wasn't ready, but are now surprised that he isn't putting up points?

I am surprised that his production is so poor..Yes I definitely am surprised.

 

[TrufleShufle]

I am surprised that his production is so poor..Yes I definitely am surprised.

Well, from now on you should listen to yourself more often regarding predictions. You might be less surprised from now on... if you listened to yourself..

 

[glenwo2]

Jack Hughes remains the Devils most talented player.

Next season he will be the Devils most talented player.

The following season he will be the Devils most talented player.

And so forth.

 

[The Wumpus]

Thought experiment:

Imagine that there was also a McDavid-level player available last summer who went first overall to another team, and we picked Hughes second overall. Everything about him is exactly the same, but we got him second instead of first.

Are we having this conversation?

The NHL is full of superstars that weren't even in the NHL at age 18. First overall is not some sort of one-size-fits-all career track that all players picked in that spot align to. Some players hit their peak faster than others, regardless of where they are picked.

It's not time to worry about Jack yet, not even close. NO ONE on this team is putting up pretty numbers, not even the vets. Maybe Palmieri and Coleman are doing their usual thing, but that's it.

 

[NjDevsRR]

And what if he goes .5 PPG for the rest of the season? Is it still a failure because he want hit 40 pts on the season even though he finished strong?

 

[Davegarri]

i expect hughes' point totals to go up now that he's going to get a lot more pp1 time with hall gone

You are forgetting one key factor. Our PP coach.

 

[NjDevsRR]

Kakko has 14 pts in 30 games on the 13th best offensive team with a 12th best PP.

Hughes has 12 pts in 29 games on the second to worst offensive team with a 29th PP.

Jim, who are you more worried about in this situation?

 

[JimEIV]

Kakko has 14 pts in 30 games on the 13th best offensive team.

Hughes has 12 pts in 29 games on the second to worst offensive team.

Jim, who are you more worried about in this situation?

Don't really care about any other teams situation to be honest. Not sure why all these diversionary issues are being tossed about?

My concern we may not have a game breaking player after drafting #1 overall twice. What is happening in other cities has no real bearing on that.