All gas, no breaks, that’s the Jack Hughes way. The middle Hughes brother is the only forward of the group and also, arguably, the most dynamic. His explosiveness on offense is something that very few NHLers can match and now that he’s becoming more reliable in his own end, he’s even more of a threat to the opposition.
Saturday night, the Devils visited the Islanders for a game at UBS Arena. The end result was a thrilling, come-from-behind, 4-3 overtime victory for the Garden Staters. And in that win, Jack Hughes recorded his second consecutive three-point game and third of the season.
“He’s fun to watch. I wouldn’t wanna defend him,” Nico Hischier chuckled about Jack Hughes’ ability. “He’s skating with the puck. He makes unbelievable plays and shoots the puck well. Jack has always been a great player for us and he’s showing it.”
Here’s how the game unfolded
The first period saw the Devils come out flying as the visitors controlled play for much of the early going. New Jersey was faster to the puck, more tenacious when trying to get the puck out of the corner and overall, the better team. They had the only power-play opportunity of the period when Pierre Engvall was called for holding Brett Pesce at 8:14. However, all of their hard work went for naught as they ended the period trailing 1-0.
On the goal, Dougie Hamilton found himself out of position while Kyle MacLean retrieved it from the corner and found Simon Holmstrom streaking down the slot. MacLean fed the puck to Holmstrom, who deked out Jacob Markstrom at 13:09 to give the Islanders a 1-0 lead.
The rest of the opening period saw the Islanders snap out of their early funk as it was the Devils’ turn to be a bit discombobulated.
The flow of the game shifted back to the Devils’ favor at the start of the second period, but Ilya Sorokin was in a zone for the Isles. Sorokin was the reason New Jersey didn’t have multiple goals through the first 25 minutes of play in the game.
Dennis Cholowski high-sticked Brett Pesce 5:17 into the middle period to put the Devils on their second power-play of the evening. After a couple of attempts were denied by Sorokin, Jack Hughes finally found a chink in the netminder’s armor and beat him with a wrist shot from the top of the left faceoff circle to tie the game 1-1 at 5:57 of the second period.
“Jack is a big part of our group,” Hischier explained. “If he gets going, when he’s playing well, he’s hard to defend. You can see that out there.”
The battle of goaltenders took centerstage after that as Sorokin and Markstrom took turns one-upping each other with big saves. One such example was Ilya Sorokin’s late-period save on a Jack Hughes breakaway that drew a thunderous ovation from the crowd and a stunned reaction from the Devils’ TV broadcast.
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Then came the third period and the ice finally opened up for both teams. Sorokin and Markstrom continued their tit-for-tat game of saves until Cholowski broke through 9:30 into the period and redeemed himself for taking the penalty that led to New Jersey’s first goal. Cholowski came streaking down the left wing, took Holmstrom’s pass in stride and wired a shot past Markstrom, beating him glove side, to give the Islanders a 2-1 lead.
Just 1:56 after Cholowski’s goal, Brock Nelson increased the Isles’ lead to 3-1 as he took Kyle Palmieri’s pass and fired a shot past Markstrom to give his team some breathing room. A little over three minutes after Nelson’s tally, Dawson Mercer drew the Devils within 3-2 when he scored from in tight thanks to a nifty pass from Paul Cotter.
Then, with Markstrom on the bench for an extra attacker, Jack Hughes created a little more magic. With the clock winding down, Hughes sent a pass from the top of the left faceoff circle, down to Stefan Noesen who was stationed along the goal line. Noesen banked his shot off Grant Hutton’s skate and the puck bounced through Sorokin to dramatically tie the game 3-3.
“Anytime you got a guy like Jack Hughes on your team, you give yourself a pretty good chance,” Stefan Noesen chimed in. “He’s been amazing so far and so has Nico (Hischier). You can go down the list with guys who have been playing really, really well.”
On to overtime and Jack Hughes put his stamp on the game. With just about two-and-a-half minutes gone by in the extra period, Dougie Hamilton retrieved the puck in the Devils’ zone and banked a stretch pass to Hughes, who was flying toward the Islanders’ blue line. Hughes took the pass in stride, broke in alone on Sorokin and beat him low, blocker side to give the Devils a 4-3 win and their first three-game winning streak of the season.
“He just seems like he’s in a groove,” Devils Head Coach Sheldon Keefe told the media after the game. “He is just confident making plays with the puck. But, to me, the biggest thing that I’ve seen is just the number of puck battles that he’s winning. He’s getting the puck back for us a great deal. Defensively, he’s been very solid. He’s in a groove. He is an elite player and when those guys are feeling it like that, they’re hard to contend with.”
On nights like Saturday, the opposition can forget about “contending” with Jack Hughes. He’s just too good. They’re better off just repeating the old Boston Braves line about “Spahn and Sain and pray for rain.” Basically, just pray you’re not on the ice when Jack Hughes is and if you find yourself in that unfortunate situation, prepare to not be very happy with the result.
