We all know how talented Jack Hughes is as a hockey player, but the beginning of this season is proving one thing the New Jersey Devils are Nico Hischier‘s team.
There is a reason why the Devils organization selected him to be the captain of the team. The way he plays the game and leads by example. Again taking away nothing from what Jack Hughes has done as a player, but Nico Hischier is the ultimate New Jersey Devil. While Hughes started the rally against the Anaheim Ducks, Hischier continued to play a two-hundred-foot game and gets rewarded for his effort.
Hischier currently leads the NHL and the New Jersey Devils with nine goals on the season. He is also tied for the Devils lead with 12 points. With each passing game, he continues to impress his new head coach Sheldon Keefe.
“It’s just been tremendous,” Keefe said following the Devils 6-2 win over the Ducks on Sunday. ” I mean, you love the fact that he’s scoring the way that he is and getting rewarded because for guy like him that gives so much to the team, hard matchups, the face offs, the penalty killing, the leadership responsibility and the burden that comes with being the captain and the leader. He takes on a lot. So you want to see a guy like him get rewarded. And yeah, he’s feeling it. I’ve just been so impressed with him, like we talked about it.”
It seemed for the last couple of seasons, fairly or unfairly, Nico Hischier took a back seat to Jack Hughes. Hughes was the flashier of the two players. He gets all the media attention with the Hughes Brothers in the NHL. Not to mention, he’s probably more marketable of the two players.
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Meanwhile, Hischier was of that two-way center the Devils knew he could be when they drafted him first overall in 2017. The way he plays the game is similar to Patrice Bergeron when he was in the league playing for the Boston Bruins. Not to mention, the current Selke Trophy winner Aleksander Barkov of the Stanley Cup Champion Florida Panthers.
Hischier just does everything the right way on and off the ice. And when his team needs a kick in the pants, Hischier gives it to them. Just look at the game heading into the 2024 All-Star Game after an embarrassing loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning. Hischier called out his teammates asking what kind of team they wanted to be.
This is exactly what you want in your leader. He is willing the New Jersey Devils to victory each night or he is trying to. Hischier continues to come up clutch for the Devils. Just look at the game against Anaheim in the third period. The Ducks are starting to buzz and gain some traction in a blowout game. What does Hischier do? He scores a goal to put the game out of reach. That is what you want from your captain and a superstar in the NHL.
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There is a reason why NHL Network listed him as one of the top 20 Centers heading into this season. Hischier can do it all. The Devils rely on him and Erik Haula so much in the face-off circle. Hischier is operating at 55.3 winning percentage in the dot. Haula is just above 57 percent. Again, Hischier is not going to steal the headlines, but he is the prototypical New Jersey Devil going back to the days when John Madden, Sergei Brylin, Bobby Holik, and Neal Broten. Those guys will do anything you ask and lead by example.
Hischier cares about winning not the statistics. And that was on display when he did not have a great game in the face-off dot against the New York Islanders on Friday.
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“In fact, even something like the other night in the overtime game we had against the Islanders he wasn’t having a great night in the face off the circle, and he was wanted to make sure I knew that and and maybe get somebody else take the face off in overtime for us,” Keefe said. “Nope, you’re gonna go win this one for us. And he went out and if you watch that face off back. He gave everything he had. Not only won the face off and ripped one off the bar. And was that close to being a hero. So that’s kind of guy we have there. I am really enjoy working with him.”
The players are following their captain’s lead. You can see the mentality when everyone takes to the ice. They want to play hard like Nico Hischier. He is winning back the room, that he probably never lost. But it is no longer the Jack Hughes show in New Jersey.
Again Jack Hughes is a superstar, but the Devils need to play more like Nico Hischier and less like Jack Hughes if they want to bring the Stanley Cup back to New Jersey.
