{"id":117212,"date":"2025-08-04T03:36:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-04T03:36:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/117212\/"},"modified":"2025-08-04T03:36:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-04T03:36:10","slug":"is-jack-hughess-contract-hurting-devils-contract-negotiations-with-luke-hughes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/117212\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Jack Hughes’s contract hurting Devils contract negotiations with Luke Hughes?"},"content":{"rendered":"

It is now August, and the New Jersey Devils still don\u2019t have a new contract for defenseman Luke Hughes. The youngest of the Hughes brothers just finished his entry-level contract, and is looking for a massive raise. He could be looking at a raise that increases his salary tenfold<\/a>. However, the Devils don\u2019t know exactly what they are going to pay him, and that might be impacting the rest of their offseason.<\/p>\n

The Devils currently have just $6 million in cap space, and we don\u2019t see any world where Hughes accepts that cap hit on a long-term deal. Heck, he probably wouldn\u2019t take $6 million on a one-year deal at this point.<\/p>\n

Hughes is looking to get paid<\/a> well after a decent 2+ seasons in the NHL. He\u2019s clearly dynamic, and we haven\u2019t seen the best of the 21-year-old just yet. A new trend is to pay positions, especially young defensemen, for future value. Cale Makar signed for $9 million per season on a six-year deal in 2021, just two years into his career. Brock Faber, who beat Luke Hughes in Rookie of the Year voting, signed an eight-year, $68 million deal after his rookie season.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Devils obviously want Luke Hughes to do the same thing. They want to sign Hughes to an eight-year deal. The longer these contracts last, the better the value when the players become stars. It often works out, and the Devils have seen it firsthand. Nico Hischier\u2019s seven-year deal, which he signed in 2019, has worked out like gangbusters. Jesper Bratt\u2019s eight-year pact is already an incredible deal.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And then there\u2019s Jack Hughes\u2019 eight-year deal. The Devils\u2019 star is making $8 million per season. The Athletic just named his contract, despite the injuries, as the best deal in the entire league. That\u2019s great for the Devils on the surface, but is a distinction like that bad for negotiations? Agents don\u2019t like to see that they had their players sign a deal that is now considered \u201cvaluable.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Jack Hughes deal could impact Luke Hughes negotiations<\/p>\n

Jack and Luke Hughes have the same agent. Pat Brisson represents the Hughes brothers, although we\u2019re sure the Hughes family plays a huge part in these large-scale decisions. That\u2019s not the only Devils\u2019 player that Brisson represents.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He also represents Dawson Mercer. That\u2019s the same Dawson Mercer who negotiated well into September<\/a> for his contract last season. He missed the beginning of training camp during the negotiation, a very important training camp with Sheldon Keefe\u2019s first practices as head coach.\u00a0<\/p>\n

There is still plenty of time until training camp, but could The Athletic\u2019s ranking hurt negotiations for the Devils? Will they need to pay up now based on their previous win? Elliotte Freidman of Sportsnet thinks it might be what\u2019s holding things up.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n

“A lot of players who don’t wanna sign a contract that quickly goes and looks like too much of a bargain… What’s going on with Luke Hughes? The Canadians fans are wondering about Lane Hudson. I just think that with the cap going up, the market is getting reset. I like, I don’t see problems getting these guys signed, but I do see the sweet spot for both team and player being a challenge. Everybody just trying to figure out where that is.”<\/p>\n

Elliotte Friedman, Sportsnet<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Friedman is obviously well connected, and he\u2019s saying this for a reason. Bringing this up directly after he was asked about Luke Hughes might show that Jack Hughes\u2019s contract might actually be hurting the Devils\u2019 negotiations with Luke Hughes.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s definitely not something that will end things. Luke Hughes\u2019s arrival on time to training camp is also important since he is coming off shoulder surgery this offseason. There is still more than a month to get the deal done and Luke Hughes into camp on time, but it sounds like the price is going to sting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It is now August, and the New Jersey Devils still don\u2019t have a new contract for defenseman Luke…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":117213,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[293,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-117212","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-nhl","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114968411099911935","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117212","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=117212"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117212\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/117213"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}