Quoting: AFox23
How much have you watched Hughes play? He skates fast, but is always on the perimeter. He never goes the hard way, into traffic, or toward net. If he does, he gets easily knocked off the puck, he loses possession and the play is over. This is why his corsi/possession numbers are so high (and scoring so low). He is just doing circles, never advancing toward the net.
The Devils have now been doing a lot better without Hughes in the lineup. That is not a fluke. Mercer actually goes hard to the net and is fearless. If it were Hughes, many of those plays would end up in an infinite loop upon Jack's stick. Mercer may give up possession at times, but in the end, it produces more total offense.
People were amazed by Yakupov's skill as well, but it didn't achieve results. It took a while for people to figure it out (because he looked flashy). Devils would be smart in getting out while they still can get useful return.
Lastly, nix the "insane" and "mental" stuff. We can just stick to hockey.
1. I have watched him play, and at best your are cherry-picking plays. He’s drives towards the net and he has quite the scoring touch. If he can skate in circles around the net, and thus become open for a shot in front, then I’d be all for that. Mercer isn’t a fair comparison as we haven’t seen Hughes much of the year and therefore it’s completely unrealistic to say that he must produce more offense. Had Hughes been playing the whole season, with what we saw at the start of the year, he would have more of a role and more offense than Mercer.
2. Again, the devils played two games with him and he had the OT winner in one of them, so I assume you must be talking about last year. If you are, that comparison is wild, as the Devils not only have their young core a year older and more developed, but added huge pieces to succeed, such as Dougie Hamilton and Bernier, so it is expected for them to play better.
The Yakupov comparison is so horrible I don’t even know where to begin. Nothing of Hughes play is anything like Yakupov, and all you’ve ever cited is that he was “flashy”. Hughes has steadily improved his point totals and overall play and showed much promise with Kuokkanen and Sharangovich last year.
I ask you this, if you think he is indeed a bust, why send him to NYR, your favorite team? The rangers are historically awful at player development, so why send him there? Unless you actually think he is better than you say, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to trade for him.