The New Jersey Devils will be without Jack Hughes for the next eight weeks.
Hughes underwent surgery to address an injury to his finger that he suffered during a team dinner on Thursday night. The Devils announced news of the surgery and Hughes’s return timeline ahead of the team’s game against the Washington Capitals on Saturday.
“New Jersey Devils C Jack Hughes underwent successful surgery on his finger,” the team wrote. “The procedure was performed by Dr. Robert Hotchkiss at the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York City. The expected return to play timeline is eight weeks, and he will be re-evaluated at the six-week mark.”
Hughes reportedly cut his finger after mistakenly leaning on a glass at a Chicago restaurant. The 24-year-old center has yet to play a full season in the NHL since the Devils made him the first overall selection in the 2019 NHL Draft.
The superstar forward currently leads the Devils with 20 points (10g, 10a) in 17 games, averaging 21:09 time on ice per game. Last year, Hughes recorded 70 points (27g, 43a) in 62 games before a shoulder surgery prematurely ended his season.
Hughes’s eight-week timeline may also keep him out of New Jersey’s December 27 matchup with the Capitals at Prudential Center. Caps head coach Spencer Carbery spoke about how the injury to Hughes impacts his staff’s pre-scout of the Devils.
“It changes (our pre-scout) significantly,” he said Saturday morning. “I think that the team, the way that New Jersey plays, that doesn’t change a lot from what we’ll show our group and talk about and make sure they’re aware of. But there are individual tendencies that Jack Hughes has that we would show and make sure our players are aware of.
“Not that they need massive amounts of reminders of that. These guys are good enough and have very good memories of what elite, elite players look like, and feel like, and what they try to do on the ice, and why they’re successful. But we always try to show those in our pre-scouts. So anytime a guy like him — even Dougie Hamilton out of the lineup, that’ll change our pre-scout a little bit. And Hughes is off to a great start. I was watching some of the stuff this morning. And yeah, he’s a handful.”
The Devils are severely banged up heading into Saturday night’s game, as Cody Glass and Zack MacEwen also left their last game against the Chicago Blackhawks with injuries. The team was already missing Johnathan Kovacevic, Evgenii Dadonov, Brett Pesce, and Connor Brown.
