New Jersey Devils forward Jack Hughes is expected to miss the next 8 weeks of action following surgery on his injured finger on Saturday. Hughes’ procedure was performed by Dr. Robert Hotchkiss at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York City.
While the Devils have been mum on what exactly transpired, the talking points they’re sticking to are that Hughes was cut in a “freak accident” at a team dinner on Thursday night. The team did however confirm that the star forward will be re-evaluated in 6 weeks time to determine a more definitive return to play plan.
The 24 year old was off to a hot start to the year posting 20 points (10G, 10A) across his first 17 games played. As a result, New Jersey had raced out to 1st place in the Metropolitan Division at 12-4-1, one point clear of second place Carolina.
If Hughes’ current timeline holds, that would put him back in action sometime around mid January. However, federations have until December 31st of this year to submit Olympic hockey rosters for the tournament which will kick off on February 11th. That puts USA Hockey in an interesting position, in terms of whether they set aside a spot for the injured star, or replace him with another player.
For the Devils, there’s no “replacing” Hughes in the lineup, but the team will do their best to remain in the division title mix without their top offensive threat. Nico Hischier is likely to move to top line centre duties, while Dawson Mercer, Cody Glass, and Luke Glendening figure to take on added responsibilities as well.
New Jersey’s first test without Hughes will come Saturday as the club travels to Washington to take on the Capitals in a 7pm ET showdown.
Photo: Jenn G. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.