StevenToddIves
Registered User
Two rules of this thread:
1)No "Hughes or Kakko" questions. The Devils are taking Jack Hughes, period. He is the best player in this draft, potentially generational, and fits in precisely with the type of game the Devils' front office wants. Ray Shero is friends with Hughes' father. Hughes will be the pick, there is not even a 0.001% chance the Devils don't take him or trade the pick.
2)No "I'm so upset the Rangers pick second" posts. Our team just got the best forward to come out of the draft in three years, a sublime offensive player who will routinely put up 100+ points in the NHL. Don't worry about how much you dislike the team getting the second best guy. They would much rather have the guy we are getting.
Here's what you're getting in Jack Hughes. On the scouting scale of 20-80, the last skater to score an 80 was Connor McDavid. Hughes is also an 80. Not only does he have straightaway speed to match anyone in the NHL, but his edge work is possibly better. What does that mean? It means that, if you are a defenseman, back the #$@! up. If you lunge at Hughes an miss, you will be posterized. He has almost superhuman agility and can skate sideways faster than you can skate forwards. Combined with Hughes' vision/stickhandling/passing skills, which are all on par with Patrick Kane, this makes him a one-man zone entry machine. If Hughes has a full head of steam (which takes a nanosecond, his acceleration is also as good as we have ever seen), two defensemen can be waiting for him at the blue-line, but he still does not need to dump in. Hughes has a rare ability to know where his teammates are, gain the blueline, turn on a dime, curl to give himself a moment's time and space, fake a move to freeze the defender, then feather a pass on the blade of a linemate no one saw him look at cutting into the zone across the ice.
Hughes is quite simply, the rare player who will change the entire way the entire other team plays the moment he steps on the ice. Though his hands are a tick below Patrick Kane (who has, in my mind, the best hands in the world), his game is similar. But while Kane is a very good skater, Hughes can skate like McDavid. No one in the history of the NHL has combined skating on McDavid's level with hands on Kane's level. That is... until Jack Hughes enters the NHL.
Jack Hughes is not imperfect. The one area where Kappo Kakko is superior to Hughes is that Kakko has no weakness in his game. Hughes is slightly below average defensively and in physicality -- so he's going to need to be paired with a player on his line who can pick up his initial slack in these areas, likely by moving Zacha onto his LW or playing Coleman on his line. But what he will do for the goal-scoring of that player is unfathomable -- Hughes is the best pure set-up man to enter the NHL since Connor McDavid.
Hughes' shot is another underrated weapon. While it is not extremely hard, it is extremely accurate and he gets it off with extreme quickness. In close, it is absolutely deadly. From further out, Hughes' greatest weapon in goalscoring is that he can change direction and angle so quickly with his otherworldly edge work that goaltenders do not have the time to change their angle, and then become victims of Hughes' outstanding accuracy. While Hughes will never lead the NHL in goals, it is a healthy assumption that he can become a perennial 30-75-105 player who can (like Patrick Kane did) become a 40+ goal scorer with greater strength and conditioning.
Hughes' size will be brought up repeatedly, like it was with those (read: the fools) who did the same with Patrick Kane. I can dig up articles of draft pundits who thought that, due to Kane's size, Van Riemsdyk or Turris should have been the #1 pick in 2007. Those pundits do not look so good now. Like Kane, Hughes seemingly has eyes in the back of his head and is nearly impossible to get a clean hit on. Like Kane, Hughes will never compete for a Selke Trophy but should develop, due to his off-the-charts hockey IQ, into a decent defensive player. Like Kane, Hughes will never be a physical player. But it is important to note that Kane is really Hughes' best comparable, and due to Hughes' far superior skating and position of center, Hughes has even higher upside than Chicago's perennial MVP candidate.
Make no mistake, the Devils have both literally and metaphorically won the lottery. It is also crucial to note that Taylor Hall has become friends with Jack Hughes over the past year-plus. The addition of Hughes all at once significantly improves the Devils chances of making the playoffs next year, winning a Stanley Cup in the future, and convincing Taylor Hall to re-sign with New Jersey long term. It is not unreasonable to expect Hughes to put up a 20-45-65 stat line next season. He will immediately replace Brendan Shanahan as the most offensively talented forward the New Jersey Devils have ever drafted. This is cause for great celebration among the Devils and their fans.
1)No "Hughes or Kakko" questions. The Devils are taking Jack Hughes, period. He is the best player in this draft, potentially generational, and fits in precisely with the type of game the Devils' front office wants. Ray Shero is friends with Hughes' father. Hughes will be the pick, there is not even a 0.001% chance the Devils don't take him or trade the pick.
2)No "I'm so upset the Rangers pick second" posts. Our team just got the best forward to come out of the draft in three years, a sublime offensive player who will routinely put up 100+ points in the NHL. Don't worry about how much you dislike the team getting the second best guy. They would much rather have the guy we are getting.
Here's what you're getting in Jack Hughes. On the scouting scale of 20-80, the last skater to score an 80 was Connor McDavid. Hughes is also an 80. Not only does he have straightaway speed to match anyone in the NHL, but his edge work is possibly better. What does that mean? It means that, if you are a defenseman, back the #$@! up. If you lunge at Hughes an miss, you will be posterized. He has almost superhuman agility and can skate sideways faster than you can skate forwards. Combined with Hughes' vision/stickhandling/passing skills, which are all on par with Patrick Kane, this makes him a one-man zone entry machine. If Hughes has a full head of steam (which takes a nanosecond, his acceleration is also as good as we have ever seen), two defensemen can be waiting for him at the blue-line, but he still does not need to dump in. Hughes has a rare ability to know where his teammates are, gain the blueline, turn on a dime, curl to give himself a moment's time and space, fake a move to freeze the defender, then feather a pass on the blade of a linemate no one saw him look at cutting into the zone across the ice.
Hughes is quite simply, the rare player who will change the entire way the entire other team plays the moment he steps on the ice. Though his hands are a tick below Patrick Kane (who has, in my mind, the best hands in the world), his game is similar. But while Kane is a very good skater, Hughes can skate like McDavid. No one in the history of the NHL has combined skating on McDavid's level with hands on Kane's level. That is... until Jack Hughes enters the NHL.
Jack Hughes is not imperfect. The one area where Kappo Kakko is superior to Hughes is that Kakko has no weakness in his game. Hughes is slightly below average defensively and in physicality -- so he's going to need to be paired with a player on his line who can pick up his initial slack in these areas, likely by moving Zacha onto his LW or playing Coleman on his line. But what he will do for the goal-scoring of that player is unfathomable -- Hughes is the best pure set-up man to enter the NHL since Connor McDavid.
Hughes' shot is another underrated weapon. While it is not extremely hard, it is extremely accurate and he gets it off with extreme quickness. In close, it is absolutely deadly. From further out, Hughes' greatest weapon in goalscoring is that he can change direction and angle so quickly with his otherworldly edge work that goaltenders do not have the time to change their angle, and then become victims of Hughes' outstanding accuracy. While Hughes will never lead the NHL in goals, it is a healthy assumption that he can become a perennial 30-75-105 player who can (like Patrick Kane did) become a 40+ goal scorer with greater strength and conditioning.
Hughes' size will be brought up repeatedly, like it was with those (read: the fools) who did the same with Patrick Kane. I can dig up articles of draft pundits who thought that, due to Kane's size, Van Riemsdyk or Turris should have been the #1 pick in 2007. Those pundits do not look so good now. Like Kane, Hughes seemingly has eyes in the back of his head and is nearly impossible to get a clean hit on. Like Kane, Hughes will never compete for a Selke Trophy but should develop, due to his off-the-charts hockey IQ, into a decent defensive player. Like Kane, Hughes will never be a physical player. But it is important to note that Kane is really Hughes' best comparable, and due to Hughes' far superior skating and position of center, Hughes has even higher upside than Chicago's perennial MVP candidate.
Make no mistake, the Devils have both literally and metaphorically won the lottery. It is also crucial to note that Taylor Hall has become friends with Jack Hughes over the past year-plus. The addition of Hughes all at once significantly improves the Devils chances of making the playoffs next year, winning a Stanley Cup in the future, and convincing Taylor Hall to re-sign with New Jersey long term. It is not unreasonable to expect Hughes to put up a 20-45-65 stat line next season. He will immediately replace Brendan Shanahan as the most offensively talented forward the New Jersey Devils have ever drafted. This is cause for great celebration among the Devils and their fans.
