Devils Luke Hughes is quickly experiencing the ups and downs of playoff hockey

NEWARK, NJ. Mistakes with the puck and mental mistakes were numerous and noticeable for the Devils in a 6-1 loss against the Carolina Hurricanes on Tuesday night at the Prudential Center. But the first big mistake came from a rookie defenseman who everyone expected to do big things in his career, playing in just his fourth NHL game and second in the Stanley Cup playoffs.

Luke Hughes, whose brother Jack had given the Devils an early lead, was given time and space in the defensive zone at the end of the first period. He passed the ball down the middle of the ice looking for Michael McLeod, but the Devils center couldn’t block it under pressure.

The Hurricanes came back, and fast. Hughes was already drifting to the home bench to change the line when Martin Necas zoomed past him and eventually hit the plate of a bouncing Jordan Martinook to tie the score with 2:20 left in the first intermission.

Martin Necas hits Martinook’s center pass past Vanecek to tie the Hurricanes’ score at 1!#LetsGoCanes pic.twitter.com/E4SCAOrtBp

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That was all the Hurricanes needed to take control. Five goals followed, all in the second period.

It’s hard to give up a goal at the end of the season, coach Lindy Ruff said. But you can’t let it bother you. You have to keep playing. You can’t let one goal weaken the team.

It did though. And now the Devils find themselves on the brink of elimination, dropping three games to one in Game 5 in Raleigh on Thursday.

Ruff opted to keep the 19-year-old Hughes in the lineup for Game 4, even though veteran Brendan Smith is now back in the lineup after being out for most of the first round. The decision was predictable. Hughes was outstanding in Sunday’s Game 3, with a pair of assists in the Devils’ 8-4 win. His skill was especially evident on Ondrej Palats’ late power play goal in the third period when, with a four-on-three advantage, Hughes controlled a clean offensive zone win, pucked the puck toward the slot and deftly passed it to his side. back hand to Jesper Bratt. A flustered Carolina defense lost track of Palat, who easily beat Bratt’s pass to finish off the scoring.

Five-on-five, Hughes’ 68.1 percent shot attempt rate was third on the team in Game 3. He showcased his elite skating and playmaking skills in several shifts as the Home Crowd serenaded him with chants of Luuuuke! whenever he had the puck.

Ruff was also impressed.

I think Luke had a great night,” Ruff said after Game 3. From the first shift to the end of the game, for a young man to step up like he did and play like he did, skate, handle the puck under pressure. , sometimes go back and wait for the discs, maybe you will get a good game. I thought he gave us a great game.

Hughes, too, was pleased with how the first playoff game of his career went.

I liked my game. It’s definitely something to build off of, he said. I want to clean up a couple of things (but) it’s a good building block for me and hopefully I can continue.

However, the Stanley Cup playoffs are a cruel beast. Two nights later, not only was Hughes the victim of Carolina’s first goal in Game 4, but he also didn’t look good on Brett Pesce’s third. He was among several bewildered Devils players who scrambled around the defense and saw the puck bounce off his skate to Jack Drury, who quickly dished it to Pesce, who put it past Vitek Vanecek midway through regulation to make it 3-1.

Brett Pesce slides into space and singles home to double Carolina’s lead to 2 in the middle of the second!#LetsGoCanes pic.twitter.com/lkNfL0ssDe

Hockey Daily 365 l NHL Highlights (@HockeyDaily365) May 10, 2023

It wasn’t just Hughes though. The play reflected what the Devils looked like as a team. Discombobulated.

“They were a lot quicker on the puck tonight than they were last game and we weren’t as quick to move it, get open for each other and move our feet,” said Damon Severson, who was also on the ice for that third Hurricanes goal. So it’s kind of a combination of them doing a better job than they did last game and we did a worse job.

No one played well for New Jersey, who were a step faster than Carolina for the first seven or eight minutes of the game before being outscored the rest of the way. The effort was so poor that Ruff seemed as confused as anyone by what he had just seen from his team, which has now been swept in three of four games in the series, including Games 1 and 2 in Raleigh by a combined 11-2. score.

I don’t know where we went, Ruff said. We didn’t skate, we didn’t support, our defense didn’t move their feet trying to get out of the zone, all the things we did so well last game. Tonight was probably as disappointed (that) I am in an important game in terms of the way I skated. They competed harder for pucks and won more battles than we did. We got on the wrong side of the puck.

Dougie Hamilton, who was scoreless and minus-8 in the series, once again lamented that the Devils couldn’t find a way to stop the Hurricanes’ momentum once they got going on offense. After the Hurricanes took a 2-1 lead, they knocked down three more in just five minutes and 20 seconds.

It feels like it’s going to snowball when we get down there,” Hamilton said. Every time the game has been like that when we start and it just keeps growing and growing. We started the first period pretty well and a late goal gave them some juice and they took it away from us a little bit.

The goalkeeper also remained porous, as Vanecek was unable to come up with a momentum-changing stop.

However, Ruff didn’t cause a loss to his keeper or even to X and Os. Of greater concern was what was happening in front of Vanacek.

It has to do with fighting, he said. You have a singles match with a guy in the neutral zone, you have to win it. You have a one-on-one conversation with a guy in your area, it’s not tactical. It’s just the desire to win, at your competition (level).

It seems likely that the Devils will return to Akira Schmid, who made 10 saves on 11 shots in relief of Vanacek on Tuesday for Thursday’s Game 5. Perhaps Ruff has other lineup changes in mind as well, such as sitting and selecting the younger Hughes brother. for a more veteran lineup in a mandatory situation.

Either way, Hughes’ Game 4 misdemeanors won’t dampen the expectations everyone still has for the fourth pick in the 2021 NHL Draft.

The way he skates and how he can move the puck is very impressive. He’s here for a reason, Severson said. Mistakes will happen. Unfortunately, we have burned them a couple of times. He’s too good a player to think about his mistakes or everything that’s going on there. Keep the hell up and get well.

(Photo: Ed Mulholland/USA Today)