Devils Forward Has NHL's Best Contract

More than in any other North American sport, contracts mean everything in the NHL. The league has a far lower salary cap and fewer ways to manipulate said cap, teams need to manage their contracts carefully or risk disaster. So having a great contract for a star player is a huge blessing, and the New Jersey Devils have just that with Jack Hughes.

Hughes, 24, carries an $8 million cap hit for five more seasons, and with him averaging more than a point per game in each of the past four seasons, he's well worth the price.

So much so that The Athletic's Dom Luszczyszyn ranked his contract as the best in the NHL, giving it a surplus value of $38 million and a positive value probability of 99.9 percent.

"As the cap continues to climb, Hughes’ modest $8 million cap hit continues to look more audacious each season. And there’s still five years remaining on it," Luszczyszyn wrote. "For roughly the price of one Elias Lindholm, the Devils get a franchise center, a borderline MVP threat and one of the league’s most impactful players. Going into next season, only seven players are projected to provide a bigger game-to-game impact than Hughes. Over the life of his deal, Hughes has a very real chance of becoming a top-five player in the sport.

"That’s a big step up from what’s expected of an $8 million forward, which is to provide low-end, first-line value. The difference between what Hughes is and what his contract demands is massive, the largest in the league. It’s what informs the chances of Hughes living up to his deal, a laughably high 99.9 percent. This deal is as good as it gets."

The main hang-up with Hughes is that he is quite injury-prone, as he's missed 20+ games in three of the past four seasons. When he's on the ice, though, he's undeniably one of the game's best players, and should only get better as he enters his true prime.

Other players near the top of Luszczyszyn's ranking include Tampa Bay Lightning forward Brandon Hagel ($6.5 million cap hit until 2032), Carolina Hurricanes forward Seth Jarvis ($7.4 million until 2032), Florida Panthers forward Sam Reinhart ($8.6 million until 2032) and Colorado Avalanche forward Nathan MacKinnon ($12.6 million until 2031). Moral of the story, locking up key players for their market rate, or sometimes even lower, pays off tremendously.