Panic sets in as Jack Hughes appears seriously hurt

It was no surprise when New Jersey Devils superstar forward Jack Hughes was named the NHL’s First Star of the Month for October. He came out red hot to kick off the 2023-24 NHL season. Before tonight’s contest against the St. Louis Blues, he was racking up accolades : he’s been the league’s point leader with 18 points (5g-13a) in eight games played since October 24. He has led the NHL in points since Oct. 20 when he put together a four-point game against the New York Islanders.

He looks unstoppable.

That's until it was the Devils’ fans who stopped breathing in the first period of Friday night's contest when Hughes was sent flying into the boards. The star forward broke away as he was being chased down by Blues’ Torey Krug and Justin Faulk, but managed to get a shot off on net. Right after the scoring chance, he tripped in front of goalie Jordan Binnington and crashed hard into the boards. He crashed on his right side with quite a bit of whiplash during the fall. 

Clearly in pain and hunched over, he made it back to the Devils’ bench, attempted to go for another shift for 59 seconds afterwards, but eventually went down the tunnel to the dressing room…

At the start of the second period, Hughes was not with his teammates for puck drop. He could still be in concussion protocol seeing how hard the impact was on the collision. 

The Devils are already without captain Nico Hischier. There’s no clear timeline on how much time the top-six forward will be out, but he has already been sidelined for three games and is not on the team’s current road trip.

It remains to be seen if Hughes will be added to the infirmary and miss time of his own. 

UPDATE: At the start of the third frame, the Devils confirmed that Hughes would not return for the remainder of the game due to an upper-body injury, per team insider Amanda Stein. 

That's just a terrible blow to the Devils. Let's hope Hughes is not out long-term. 

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