Devils' disappointing season gets worse with news about star center

The New Jersey Devils have announced that star centerman Jack Hughes will undergo season-ending shoulder surgery on April 10. His season will come to a close after just 62 games, with Hughes scoring 27 goals and 74 points.

This news finally brings an end to what’s been an injury-riddled year for Hughes. He missed two weeks of action in November with a right shoulder injury and earned a spot on injured reserve for one month in January with another upper-body injury. And while Hughes has been consistently in the lineup since Feb. 8, he hasn’t seemed to be in full health — shying away from physicality and not taking a single faceoff since his last injury.

But even when hobbled, Hughes was still a dominant player for the Devils. He’s scored 29 points in 30 games since Feb. 8, while averaging 21:28 in ice time. That ranks Hughes second on the team in scoring in that span, behind Nico Hischier and tied with Timo Meier. It also ranks him in the top 30 in league scoring over the last two months.

New Jersey has gone 31-31 with Hughes in the lineup, compared to 6-10 in the games he’s missed, and 12-16 since his return from injured reserve. They’ll now have to finish the year off without him, but there’s not much left to fight for — with New Jersey sitting five points, and five spots, away from an Eastern Conference wild-card spot. Nolan Foote is expected to make his season debut in Hughes’ absence on Tuesday. Foote has missed a large portion of the season with an upper-body injury suffered during the preseason. He’ll be playing in his 20th career NHL game and his first since March 2023.