Blackjack
Registered User
Hughes still makes defensive mistakes wich result in goals or high danger chances to often for my taste. Some of it is due to his high risk, high reward style of play but i think he still has to improve on that area. As far as his shot is concerned, I absolutely agree that this is his biggest deficiency and should be his number one area to improve in the of season. Right now both accuracy and especially shot power are not on an NHL level. Luckily for him he is elite in many other aspects of the game already.
Agree to disagree on the defense. I've not seen what you see, and I don't see it reflected in the analytics. I know you were originally comparing him to Stutzle in this aspect, so just to be clear I can't really comment on Hughes vs. Stutzle defensively as I haven't really watched Stutzle enough to have an opinion.
As far as finishing goes, I think it's more than just his shot, which I don't think is all that awful actually. It's also shot selection and just generally converting xG's into goals. Hughes caught a lot of iron this year (among the league leaders in posts hit I believe) so some of it is just lousy luck, but there were also a lot of just opportunities where there were pucks loose in the slot and you just felt that an older, stronger, more confident Jack Hughes would find a way to finish.