Luke Hughes has signed a 7-year, $63 million contract with the Devils.
After several weeks of waiting, the New Jersey Devils have finally signed their top young defenseman to an extension. While we had all hoped it would be worked out during the month of July, silence spiraled into rumors, leading to a few discussions on the matter over the last couple weeks. Recently, Jackson gave the case for a bridge deal, but Pierre LeBrun reported on Insider Trading a couple weeks ago that the Devils and Luke Hughes seemed to be working towards a long-term extension. This was later backed up by Elliote Friedman, who repeatedly said that Hughes was fixated on a long-term deal. This was welcome news for Devils fans, who had been subjected to rumors about his contract, ranging from talk of a five-year deal to match him up withJack’s contract (which had cold water poured on by Jack himself) to Paul Bissonnette’s later mention of a mystery Hughes family member wanting the brothers on the New York Rangers. But, as Jack said,
[Luke] enjoys playing in New Jersey…I’m giving really political answers, because that’s what you’re supposed to do. Even more so than Matthew [Tkachuk], like, I’m on Luke’s team. So, I want to see it get done. But, yeah, obviously, there’s a lot of pieces in play. I know he wants to stay in New Jersey.
Unsurprisingly, most of the talk about the Luke Hughes contract situation has been based off of pure rumor and conjecture. Without any solid reports to work from, people have taken plenty of shots in the dark. Tom Fitzgerald bears some blame for this after calling Luke’s contract his biggest priority in his free agency media availability. Had he worked the contract out with more haste, or simply said that the two sides would work on it over the summer, the length of negotiations might not have roused so much suspicion. Still, the news over the last week or so was all that the two camps were looking at a long-term extension, meaning seven or eight years.
Flash forward to today, and Luke has signed a 7-year, $63 million contract. This move will likely mean that Johnny Kovacevic will soon be on long-term injured reserve, as the Devils will be over the cap ceiling as a result of this contract. With this deal, Hughes is also eligible to play in the final two preseason games before the regular season commences on October 9. After missing nearly two weeks of training camp, Hughes still gets a little bit of time to get up to speed with his teammates and coaches, and I look forward to seeing him on the ice.
Please note that this article will be updated with more of a reaction to this contract. For now, please feel free to discuss the deal with your fellow Devils fans. And let us all be glad that this is starting to be put behind us.
Category: General Sports
