Luke Hughes
Points by season
Career NHL points, ending with the 84-game projection (violet).
Pool value
Projected full-season fantasy worth.
why 81?
Each row is one fantasy category turned into points over a full 84-game season. Add the rows up and that is his total fantasy worth.
- proj goals21 × 3+63
- proj assists24 × 1+24
- PP points9 × 0.5+4.5
- game-winning goals4 × 0.5+2
- OT goals0 × 0.25+0
- shots190 × 0.1+19
- PIM44 × 0.05+2.2
- ice time (min)2045 × 0.01+20.5
- total135 pool points · an elite defenseman season scores 166135 = 81/100
Weights follow what the average fantasy league actually counts: goals at 3× assists (the universal core), power-play points and game-winners at half weight (common extra categories), OT goals, shots and PIM small (many leagues skip them), and ice time as a quiet availability bonus. The scale: add up a whole season of those categories and compare against the best defensemen in the NHL — an elite season scores about 166 points, and that is what 100 means. So 135 points is 81 out of a perfect fantasy season at his position. Defensemen and forwards are graded on separate scales because the D slot can only be filled by a defenseman. Goals and assists come from the backtested season model; the rest ride your own season-to-date pace over 84 games (19 games so far — small sample, secondary lines will move as roles settle). Hits/blocks are excluded: the free NHL feeds don't publish full-season totals, and we don't invent them.
The Situation
- Every night: in the lineup for all of the team's last 10 games.
- Availability: every game this season — 17 of 17 for NJD.
Every line is measured from our own boxscore ledger; absence reasons from the NHL Status Report and our transaction wire only — no insider guessing.
Finishing check overperforming O/U ▲ +5.9
- TRADE VALUE: ABOVE PACE — mildly. A good offer now prices in shooting luck most leagues won't keep paying for.
- 14.0% shooting on 43 shots against HIS OWN career baseline of 6.6% (258 shots before this season) — that's 3.2 goals above what his shot volume normally buys for him (2.8 expected goals). over pace. His shrunk talent rate is 9.6%, worth PD +5.9 goals per 84 over/under his own standard.
- His linemates (Pesce 5.3%, Hughes 11.8%, Hischier 18.6%, Bratt 9.1%) aren't running hot alongside him — the goal surge looks individual, so the assist regression risk is smaller than the goal risk.
Model: goals vs shot volume vs live league position baselines; talent SH% is an empirical-Bayes shrinkage of the season…
His shooting talent is estimated by shrinking his season shooting percentage toward his league position mean in proportion to sample size (kappa pseudo-shots prior), then projecting the gap over 84 games at his current shot volume. Small samples stay near zero — the number only moves when the evidence does.
The method follows published hockey-analytics research: a shooter is judged against his own career shooting percentage, because a player's own career rate predicts his next goals better than any league average (“Expected by Whom? A Skill-Adjusted Expected Goals Model for NHL Shooters and Goaltenders,” arXiv:2511.07703). Thin careers (rookies) shrink toward the league mean for the position, and the season number is shrunk toward the player's own anchor with empirical-Bayes weights — Nandakumar & Jensen (2019), Annual Review of Statistics and Its Application, doi:10.1146/annurev-statistics-030718-105202. This section is about the gap between luck and his pace, not talent.
Season stats
NHL regular-season totals, season by season. The 84-G proj line extends the current season with our public model — methodology in the caption below the table.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | P | +/- | PIM | PPG | PPP | SHG | TOI/GP | GWG | OTG | S | S% | FOW% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022-23 | Devils | 2 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 16:14 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 50.0% | 0.0% |
| 2023-24 | Devils | 82 | 9 | 38 | 47 | -25 | 28 | 4 | 25 | 0 | 21:28 | 1 | 1 | 135 | 6.7% | 0.0% |
| 2024-25 | Devils | 71 | 7 | 37 | 44 | -9 | 16 | 0 | 16 | 0 | 21:09 | 1 | 0 | 121 | 5.8% | 0.0% |
| 2025-26 | Devils | 68 | 6 | 29 | 35 | -4 | 32 | 2 | 13 | 0 | 23:01 | 1 | 0 | 150 | 4.0% | 0.0% |
| 2026-27 | Devils | 20 | 6 | 5 | 11 | 10 | 12 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 24:17 | 1 | 0 | 46 | 13.0% | 0.0% |
| 84-G proj | Devils | 84 | 21 | 24 | 45 | — | 46 | — | 12 | — | 22:18 | — | — | 154 | — | — |
84-G proj — current pace blended with the player's own history (recent seasons weighted heaviest), mixed with a similarity projection from historical players with comparable profiles, then adjusted for the aging curve (league-average peak at 27; decline after) — at age 23 that is 2%. Dashes mark stats the model doesn't project.
Comparable player-seasons: Sean Durzi (2025-25) · Thomas Harley (2025-25) · Jake Walman (2025-25) · Tony DeAngelo (2025-25) · Seth Jones (2025-25).
Goals — with the line
| Time | ST | Type | Goal | His line | Opp ice |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Nov 7 · @ NYI | |||||
| P4 01:18 | EV | Assist | Hughes (Hughes) → 5-4 | Bratt · Hughes Hughes | Duclair · Horvat Schaefer Sorokin (G) |
| Nov 5 · vs STL | |||||
| P1 07:34 | EV | Goal | #? (Pesce, Hughes) → 1-0 | Bratt · Hughes · Gritsyuk Pesce | McMichael · McTavish · Kaskimaki Fowler · Parayko Binnington (G) |
| P2 18:00 | EV | Assist | Boqvist (Hughes, Mantha) → 3-1 | Mantha · Rodrigues · Boqvist Pesce · Hughes | Thomas · Holloway · Snuggerud Parayko · Barron Binnington (G) |
| Nov 3 · vs EDM | |||||
| P2 07:42 | PP | Assist | #? (Hughes, Hughes) → 1-1 | Bratt · Hischier · Hughes Hughes | McDavid · Michaels Ekholm · Shea Jarry (G) |
| Oct 30 · @ VGK | |||||
| P1 05:38 | EV | Goal | #? (Mantha) → 1-0 | Brown · Mantha · Glass Pesce | Hertl · Howden · Bowman Andersson · Heinola Hill (G) |
Line mates
Teammates sharing the most ice time with Luke over the last 10 games — reconstructed shift-by-shift from the NHL's official timing feed (goalies excluded).
| Player | Shared min | GP | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Brett Pesce NJD | 160 | 9 | |
| Jack Hughes NJD | 98 | 10 | |
| Nico Hischier NJD | 96 | 10 | |
| Jesper Bratt NJD | 81 | 10 | |
| Timo Meier NJD | 64 | 10 |
Data via the public NHL API · 2026 Pro Hockey Stats