East-leading Devils face another extended stint without best player Jack Hughes

NEWARK, N.J. (AP) — Jack Hughes is a big reason the New Jersey Devils are atop the Eastern Conference and one of the best teams in the NHL six weeks into the season, and now they’ll have to endure the next two months without their best player.

Hughes is out long term after undergoing surgery to repair a non-hockey-related finger injury, and his teammates are faced with the challenge of filling the void left by the absence of the face of the franchise. They’ve been here before, forced to play the final two months of last regular season and the playoffs after Hughes had shoulder surgery, and with an upgraded roster might be even better equipped this time around to handle it.

“You’ve got to now just dig in for it,” captain Nico Hischier said after practice Monday. “Obviously he’s a game-changer type of guy that can decide games for us. We’ve still got enough skill in here, but we’ve got to be even more glued together, stick together and keep working on our process that we believe can have us being a successful hockey team.”

There has been a lot of success early for New Jersey, which won 13 of 17 games with Hughes leading the way with 10 goals and 20 points. Beating Washington on Saturday night without him ensured first place in the East at least into the start of an upcoming road trip.

First-line winger Timo Meier said the Devils have not been beating themselves and know they cannot rest on what has worked in the past, given it’s a long season.

“We’re giving ourselves a chance every night to win the game, and we have high expectations on ourselves,” Meier said. “We’ve got to continue and raise that level every day.”

They are playing at a high level despite a bevy of injuries. Defensemen Brett Pesce and Dougie Hamilton, forwards Connor Brown, Cody Glass and Evgenii Dadonov and No. 1 goaltender Jacob Markstrom have all missed time.

Hamilton, Brown and Dadonov all could return this week, though no one around the team wants to use being banged up as an excuse.

“We’ve got to play with those guys that are available,” Hischier said. “Nobody wants to be out. Obviously it’s great to have Dougie back and Brownie, as well, and we move on from here.”

Winger Jesper Bratt, who leads the Devils with 12 assists, pointed out that Hughes is a particularly hard player to replace. Hughes has big roles at even strength and on the power play and also gets some penalty-killing time as part of his 21 minutes a night.

When Hughes was sidelined in March, brother Jack, Hischier and Bratt were all point-a-game producers down the stretch.

“You never want to be used to it or anything, but there was definitely a situation that we got known for a little bit from last year: losing him in the end of the season through the playoffs, new guys stepping up and taking on bigger rules and stuff like that,” Bratt said. “From that standpoint I think that we, as a group, just got to move forward.”

Sheldon Keefe, in his second season as New Jersey’s coach, is counting on defending to carry his team through to sometime in January when Hughes is ready to return.

“Even with Jack, producing offense was a challenge for us, so not having him and the number of others we’ve been missing, the expectation is offense is going to be harder to come by, so let’s not give them any freebies,” Keefe said. “We’ve got to be smart and we’ve got to protect our goaltender: reduce the amount of shots and high-quality chances so that we can keep the goals against down.”

Missing Hughes, Keefe knows he cannot ask more out of Hischier but will lean on the likes of Ondrej Palat, Stefan Noesen and rookie Arseni Gritsyuk and others to pick up some more slack. Getting other reinforcements back should also help.

“You manage it as best you can,” Keefe said. “And you hope that along the way here, we can stay healthy and get some people back and then that can make it a lot easier.”

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