Jack Hughes on pace to have worst rookie season by a 1st overall forward since Patrik Stefan in 1999

[KevinRedkey]

If you're going to compare him to overall seasons, an "on pace" comparison isn't really fair. You should look at the first 30 games of all 1st overalls. You probably want to limit that further by only looking at 1st overall selections that went immediately to the NHL. There's obviously some adjustment period of going straight from juniors to the NHL.

I'll look at the first 24 games since that's how many Hughes has played. I'll also ignore Dmen.

2005 - Crosby - 12g, 28p
2007 - Kane - 7g, 25p
2008 - Stamkos - 3g, 11p
2009 - Tavares - 9g, 19p
2010 - Hall - 6g, 12p
2011 - RNH - 10g, 25p
2012 - Yakupov - 6g, 12p
2013 - MacKinnon - 4g, 15p
2015 - McDavid - 10g, 28p
2016 - Matthews - 11g, 19p
2017 - Hischier - 5g, 18p
2019 - Hughes - 4g, 11p

 

[KCC]

It might be a different league now but small or not you still have to prove you can play. Even though the slightest breeze topples him over like a domino, looking at his entire body of work so far, it's clear he is not ready, plain and simple. I thought he should have been sent down but he stayed and hasn't shown much that he deserves to be there. Oh well. Devils are done anyways so he can gain more experience and try and put on some weight and muscle this off season.

 

[Beukeboom]

Hasn't he been injured a few games?

Anyway, size isn't an issue. From what I've seen he looks pretty skilled out there. I think he lacks some judgement in the decision making, and overcompliates things, but that is fine for someone his age.

I don't really get this obession with size? That WAS an issue when the Flyers around 2000, had a defense averaging 235 pounds per player, and all were willing to take your head off.

 

[Lumpy Grits]

Just for reference... anyone know historically what the best rookie seasons for an 18 year old out of the usntdp are?

 

[SI90]

He’ll be fine. He’s showed flashes of his ability. The team is terrible right now. Not every 18 year old is going to come in and succeed right away.

 

[goonybird]

he sucks! trade his ass!

 

[TrufleShufle]

No , I don't think HFBoards said that as it isn't a single entity but consists of large number of people with differing opinions .

Please delete this, if you expose HF as actually being a group of people made up of differing opinions, you take away the ability of so many posters who gloat after something happens and bring up something one guy said and claim it was "hfboards." Making it seem as though they were the only one who had the correct opinion. This is all some people have, don't take that away.

 

[Slap]

Skinny kid having a tough time entering the big league is no surprise to me.
He will take some time but he will get there if he really wants it

 

[The Ultimate Pielord]

Worst Rookie seasons by 1st overall picks (by GAR/60) since 2007:
1. 12-13 (Nail Yakupov, -0.003 GAR/60)
2. 09-10 (John Tavares, 0.203 GAR/60)
3. 08-09 (Steven Stamkos, 0.255 GAR/60)
4. 18-19 (Rasmus Dahlin, 0.293 GAR/60)
5. 10-11 (Taylor Hall, 0.296 GAR/60)
6. 19-20 (Jack Hughes, 0.351 GAR/60)

So yeah, worst since Stefan is a bit of an overstatement. He's pretty middle-of-the-road overall as rookie 1st overall picks are.

 

[ecemleafs]

Took me like two seconds, don't tell me something is not possible.

View attachment 287407

Traumatizing

 

[Hattrickkane88]

Taylor Hall is 100% to blame for this, he missed FOUR breakaways in a two game stretch and every pass was made by Hughes. That's just a two game stretch as well, if we were to count the entire season Hall has likely cost him 10 points easy.

It's tough when you are a new player playing on the same line with a "superstar" so you feed him in all the right places and he can't even score a breakaway, let alone the PP where the devils just give Hall the puck and he turns it over.

 

[Ryuji Yamazaki]

I think if he were on a real team, he'd do much better.

 

[KevinRedkey]

Just for reference... anyone know historically what the best rookie seasons for an 18 year old out of the usntdp are?

NHL Draft

I skimmed the list, and I believe the top 10 is...
Kane - 72 points
Matthews - 69 points
Eichel - 56 points
M.Tkachuk - 48 points
B.Tkachuk - 45 points

Though, that's just rookies that went straight to the NHL. Not sure if they were 18 for very long, as I didn't check that.

 

[The Ultimate Pielord]

I'll look at the first 24 games since that's how many Hughes has played. I'll also ignore Dmen.

2005 - Crosby - 12g, 28p
2007 - Kane - 7g, 25p
2008 - Stamkos - 3g, 11p
2009 - Tavares - 9g, 19p
2010 - Hall - 6g, 12p
2011 - RNH - 10g, 25p
2012 - Yakupov - 6g, 12p
2013 - MacKinnon - 4g, 15p
2015 - McDavid - 10g, 28p
2016 - Matthews - 11g, 19p
2017 - Hischier - 5g, 18p
2019 - Hughes - 4g, 11p

Problems with points:

1. Purely offensive metric, which can miss a fair bit. In Jack's case, it misses his fairly solid defense and excellent penalty differential, which have given him 2.4 Goals above average (he's +8 on penalties for the year in just 24 games, that's really good, tied for 10th in the league!)
2. Very luck-dependant. Jack's underperformed his expected fenwick shooting% by about 2.3 percentage points, good for about an extra goal if he shoots at a league average number (his individual expected goals is a little over 5, too). More notably, his team's scoring 0.7 fewer goals than expected goals with him on the ice at 5v5, which is not helping his assist numbers. He also only has 2 secondary assists on the season (10th on the devils, tied for 312th in the league). It's been long determined that secondary assists are mostly luck, especially for forwards. If his secondary assists and primary assists were equal and he had that extra goal, he'd be rocking a respectable 15 points, tied with MacKinnon and ahead of Stammer and Hall. The only difference is crappy luck.
3. Very usage-dependent. This one doesn't super apply to Jack, but it is worth noting that some of the biggest factors in point totals are powerplay time, overall icetime, and quality of teammates, none of which a player can control. Jack's seen some decent usage so it's not a big factor dropping his point totals, but it is worth noting.

Hughes hasn't been great, but he's not been terrible either. There's a solid argument that his rookie year's been better than Stammer, JT or Hall, and they all turned out just fine.

 

[MikeK]

He shouldn't be in the NHL. He isn't ready. Too much too soon will hurt his development like it has since the dawn of time.

 

[Motte and Bailey]

NHL Draft

I skimmed the list, and I believe the top 10 is...
Kane - 72 points
Matthews - 69 points
Eichel - 56 points
M.Tkachuk - 48 points
B.Tkachuk - 45 points

Though, that's just rookies that went straight to the NHL. Not sure if they were 18 for very long, as I didn't check that.

None of those guys meet the criteria because they either played in the OHL, NCAA, or Swiss league before making the NHL not the USNTDP/USHL.

 

[The Ultimate Pielord]

He shouldn't be in the NHL. He isn't ready. Too much too soon will hurt his development like it has since the dawn of time.

Hughes's GAR on the year is tied with Joonas Donskoi, Shea Theodore, Kevin Labanc and Yanni Gourde. He's not exactly been spectacular, but let's ease off with the doom and gloom and "he's not an NHLer" talk.

 

[Motte and Bailey]

Hughes's GAR on the year is tied with Joonas Donskoi, Shea Theodore, Kevin Labanc and Yanni Gourde. He's not exactly been spectacular, but let's ease off with the doom and gloom and "he's not an NHLer" talk.

GAR is also a terrible stat

 

[Bryanbryoil]

He's physically under developed. I'd be much more concerned if he were 6' 3" and 220lbs. and struggling. Give him a year or two to fill out and get stronger and he'll be fine.

 

[TheBeastCoast]

It is really fascinating to me that in 19 and 20 you are going to have a centre that should be a winger and a winger that should be a centre get drafted 1st overall.

 

[Albatros]

If his secondary assists and primary assists were equal and he had that extra goal, he'd be rocking a respectable 15 points, tied with MacKinnon and ahead of Stammer and Hall. The only difference is crappy luck.

And the fact that he has played a ton more, Stamkos was largely benched and only had points in two games under Melrose for little fault of his own. So talk about luck.

 

[The Ultimate Pielord]

GAR is also a terrible stat

He's above average in both expected goals for and against RAPM at 5v5 (and xG is IIRC fully fixed now). His 0.78 Primary assists per 60 is tied with Yanni Gourde (him again) and is just 0.01 behind Phil Kessel and Filip Forsberg. His 0.62 goals/60 ties him with Johnny Gaudreau and RNH, just 0.01 behind Tyler Seguin. And his 0.84 ixG/60 is tied with Evgeny Kuznetsov and Sidney Crosby. He very much is fine.

Also: what's wrong with GAR? Essentially just isolated impact on team goals for and expected goals against + value from drawing and avoiding taking penalties is a pretty solid way of seeing how good a player is IMO.

 

[IamNotADancer]

"On pace for" is the worst and dumbest thing in sports. You can literally be "on pace for" 300 goals.

A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.

I prefer "having" over "could have".

 

[The Ultimate Pielord]

And the fact that he has played a ton more, Stamkos was largely benched and only had points in two games under Melrose for little fault of his own. So talk about luck.

This year Jack's rocking an ATOI of 16:02. Hall's was 18:13 his rookie year, Stammer's was 14:56 and Mackinnon packed a 17:21. Not really an accurate explanation except for Stammer.

 

[93LEAFS]

Well Patrick Kane, Sidney Crosby, Ryan Nugent-Hopkins, and Nico Hischier didn’t need that excuse, they were all about the same size and weight that Jack Hughes is at now and they dominated the NHL in their rookie years or at least doubled Jack Hughes’ production

Only one comparable size wise is Kane. Crosby was like 195 at 18.