Nobody had ever made the jump from the USHL to the NHL before so the expectation was a tough go of it in year one. I said I expected him to have a Stamkos-esque first year and even that proved to be a little too much to handle. It was always going to be a major adjustment for him.

Underlying numbers show he definitely struggled but also got very unlucky along the way (anecdotally, I remember him being on the wrong end of multiple “save of the night” candidates throughout the year) as the Devils had an on-ice shooting % of just 5(!!) with Hughes out there. For comparison’s sake, Mikko Rantanen’s rookie year on one of the worst/unluckiest offensive teams in recent NHL history was buoyed by an on-ice shooting percentage of 8.06.

There’s a lot of work to be done and this pandemic might put a dagger in some key development opportunities so year two may not be a major leap, either. It’s obviously still early but for a small player who was going to struggle with increased physicality, it wasn’t a surprise to see him struggle the way he did.