{"id":445243,"date":"2026-01-31T13:50:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-31T13:50:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/445243\/"},"modified":"2026-01-31T13:50:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-31T13:50:08","slug":"devils-jack-hughes-out-indefinitely-olympic-status-believed-to-be-unaffected","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/445243\/","title":{"rendered":"Devils’ Jack Hughes Out Indefinitely, Olympic Status Believed To Be Unaffected"},"content":{"rendered":"

The New Jersey Devils will once again move forward without a star forward. Jack Hughes<\/a> is back on the shelf after leaving Thursday\u2019s win over the Nashville Predators early. Devils head coach Sheldon Keefe<\/a> said that the team has no update on Hughes\u2019 injury, other than to mention that he will undergo further testing, per team reporter Amanda Stein<\/a>. Hughes is not expected to travel with the team to Saturday\u2019s game in Ottawa. The Devils return for a two-game homestand at the start of next week, before the NHL enters its three-week break for the 2026 Winter Olympics.<\/p>\n

Despite the poor timing, Hughes\u2019 availability for the Olympics is not believed to be in doubt, per Pierre LeBrun of The Athletic<\/a>. Hughes will undoubtedly be a focal piece of the Team USA roster, if healthy. The 24 year old captained the U.S. National Team Development Program prior to his first-overall selection in 2019, but hasn\u2019t had many chances to appear with USA since then, due to injury and playoff appearances. Hughes recorded one assist in four games at the 2025 4-Nations Face-Off \u2013 his first appearance with the country\u2019s men\u2019s team since making the NHL.<\/p>\n

Hughes has remained an electric piece of New Jersey\u2019s offense when he\u2019s on the ice. He has scored 36 points in 36 games this season, making him the only Devil still scoring at a point-per-game pace. Hughes has met that scoring mark in each of the last five seasons. He scored 56 points in 49 games of the 2021-22 season, then set a franchise record with 99 points in 78 games of the 2022-23 campaign. Those performances served as his breakout years \u2013 but routine injury has kept the star forward from becoming the first Devil to break the century scoring mark.<\/p>\n

Hughes has averaged 39 goals and 96 points per 82 games played over the last five seasons. He has also averaged 25 missed games per season in that span. Injury has been a reoccuring challenge for the dynamo scorer, whether short-term or long-term, or brought on by freak accident. Hughes falling out of the lineup once again will force another shakeup of New Jersey\u2019s offense.<\/p>\n

The Devils elevated Timo Meier<\/a> to play next to Dawson Mercer<\/a> and Jesper Bratt<\/a> following Hughes\u2019 exit on Thursday; while demoting Evgenii Dadonov<\/a> to a line with Connor Brown<\/a> and Paul Cotter<\/a>. Those lines should stick through Saturday\u2019s game against Ottawa, while Nico Hischier<\/a> and Arseny Gritsyuk<\/a> are flanked by Lenni Hameenaho<\/a> or Maxim Tsyplakov<\/a>. The Devils will certainly hope these adjustments are only temporary, and that Hughes\u2019 further testing confirms what is believed to be a short-term injury.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The New Jersey Devils will once again move forward without a star forward. Jack Hughes is back on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":445244,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[49,48,5718,12429,749,448,4963,82,58784],"class_list":["post-445243","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-injury","tag-jack-hughes","tag-new-jersey-devils","tag-nhl","tag-olympics","tag-sports","tag-team-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445243","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=445243"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445243\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/445244"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=445243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=445243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=445243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}