Devils star out week-to-week

New Jersey Devils head coach Lindy Ruff shared updates on the team’s long list of injuries, most notably sharing that star forward Jack Hughes’ upper-body injury is more a matter of weeks than it is months. 

The 22-year-old will be evaluated on a week-to-week basis and is slated to miss some time. Ruff also shared that Timo Meier has returned in a “limited fashion”, and that he will return to practice sooner rather than later. The team’s other injured players — including Ondrej Palat, Tomas Nosek and Dougie Hamilton — are not expected back soon — all per Devils team reporter Amanda Stein.

New Jersey is facing a long list of injuries, moving top defender Jonas Siegenthaler to injured reserve on Tuesday morning and recalling Shane Bowers and Callan Foote from the minor leagues. Both minor leaguers took the ice for the team’s Tuesday practice, suggesting that they could slot into the lineup with so many missing pieces.

Neither player has played in the NHL this season, though Foote does have 141 games of NHL experience under his belt. Bowers has only played in one NHL game, suiting up for the Colorado Avalanche two seasons ago, and has since been a feature presence in the AHL. The 24-year-old Bowers has six goals and seven points in 29 AHL games this year.

The long string of injuries has been incredibly detrimental to a Devils team that entered the season as an early Stanley Cup favorite. Now without their star centerman for the second stretch this season, New Jersey will need to once again lean on their depth pieces to pull them through the middle of the year. 

Hughes has been electric when he has been on the ice, scoring 15 goals and 45 points in only 32 games. That’s a pace of 38 goals and 97 points across 82 games, though Hughes will struggle to reach that mark after already missing six games this season. Hughes scored 43 goals and 99 points in 78 games last season. If and when his illustrious 100-point year will come is once again uncertain.