Is Jack Hughes already truly elite?

On Friday’s episode of Daily Faceoff Live, Frank Seravalli and Tyler Yaremchuk discussed if New Jersey Devils center Jack Hughes is truly elite.

Tyler Yaremchuk: Thursday night, Jack Hughes joined the party — a big couple of markers for Jack Hughes in his season opener. In 18 minutes of ice time, he pops home two goals and he leads the Devils to 4-3 win over Detroit — a little bit of a nail-biter with a late goal from the Detroit Red Wings.

But, Frank, I want to make this into a bit of a conversation about Hughes and maybe his ability to push himself into the tier of Auston Matthews and Nathan Mackinnon and those pieces. Two goals is a great way to get things rolling; the Devils centerman looks like he is going to take maybe a bit of a bigger step forward than even he did last year when he put up 99 points.

Frank Seravalli: I think he’s already there. I don’t think there’s any question in my mind that he’s already in that category of players. There are maybe 10 to 17 of them in the league, depending on how you look at it across all positions. Call them the franchise players; Jack Hughes is one. I just love the creativity, the shiftiness, the speed — it all comes at you at once. When you look at living up to the hype, there wasn’t the massive sort of, this is a generational-type talent, even when he was picked at No. 1 overall in 2019.

But the way his game has progressed, the way that he’s been able to figure out playing in the NHL, the way that he’s been able to add strength — I think has really transformed his game in a big way. The first couple of years I watched him I was like, I think every time he gets hit you were bracing for, man, I hope someone doesn’t crush him. And now when he has the puck, it’s like get out of his way.

Tyler Yaremchuk: Yeah, I compare his career arc, very similar to Nathan Mackinnon. You go back through the early stages of Mackinnon’s career, 60 points, 38 points, 52 points. It wasn’t until his fifth season in the league that he finally had a point-per-game season. When the Avs committed to him with that contract, that was right around the neighborhood of $6.5 million, that first extension. A lot of people were like “Woah… why are you giving this guy $6 million when he hasn’t proved he can be a star yet?”

You compare that to Hughes and he wasn’t a point per game until last season when he popped for 99. And, Frank, when they gave him that $8 million extension, a lot of people were sitting there going, what’s the rush to commit to this guy we don’t know if he’s even going to be your No. 1 center — that might be Nico Hischier. Now you look, I mean an $8 million AAV for Jack Hughes, he’s the 43rd^-highest-paid player by cap hit in the NHL. And that deal’s just going to keep getting better. It’s an insane contract.

Frank Seravalli: He’s the new Mackinnon deal, like chronically underpaid. But I think if you’re Jack Hughes and you’re his representative, you’re also sitting there probably having a similar type of conversation that Mackinnon is. Which is like yeah, $64 million I might lose a few in the meantime, but God forbid I get hurt, God forbid I don’t get to the level that I think I should, $64 million — I’ll never have to work again. So that’s life-changing money in that regard, and you take that security whenever you can get it.

They’re totally different players — Nathan Mackinnon is a force of nature, and Jack Hughes is freak of nature. And yet the career arc production-wise as you mentioned, is actually kind of similar. I just think the way he continues to go; I see a jump from 99 to 115. He’s only going to continue to get better as the New Jersey Devils are better around him.

Tyler Yaremchuk: They go and pick up Timo Meier, full season of him coming this year. Tyler Toffoli looked really nice on that Devils top line in the season opener. Devils are 1-0 to start the season.

You can watch the remainder of the episode here: