Having Some Hope | 10 TAKEAWAYS

I knew exactly where I'd start this week.
There's nothing I've been asked about more this season (except maybe Dougie Hamilton's return from injury timeline) than where is Miles Wood and how is he doing.
The truth is, there hasn't been much to update as he was going through his long, arduous rehab from hip surgery. It was what it was, a process.
But over the weekend, there was actual information to share, and that's where we begin in this week's 10 Takeaways, presented by Ticketmaster.

2.

General manager Tom Fitzgerald in an
interview with The Athletic's Pierre LeBrun
had this to offer considering the state of the goaltending with the Devils. The club is up to having used six goaltenders this season out of necessity, with injuries to Mackenzie Blackwood and the season-ending surgery to Jonathan Bernier. Lindy Ruff suggested that Blackwood's recovery is going slowly and there still isn't clarity on when he will be able to return.
Fitzgerald said it was "his job, his duty" to make sure the goaltending situation is worked out this off-season.
"We've gone through six goalies this year. And No. 6 right now looks like he's going to be a good one in Nico Daws… I've really enjoyed watching Nico Daws play."
But Fitzgerald did too, acknowledge his appearances, and that of Akira Schmid was out of complete necessity and not the original plan.
"Neither one should have been in the NHL this year,'' he told LeBrun.
But no NHL season is without its bumps in the road and that's where the Devils found themselves with goaltending in particular.

3.

And just as bumps in the road are part of an NHL season, so is an opportunity, something we might want to ask Daws about, because he appears to be taking his.
The 21-year-old netminder has been the defacto starter over the last six games for New Jersey, starting in five of them.
He has a winning record over the stretch (3-2-0) and has a .925 save percentage.

4.

In the same way that Fitzgerald recognized the circumstances between the pipes for New Jersey, so does coach Lindy Ruff, who has to work with the hand he is dealt. And sometimes that means putting a player in a difficult position, but also watching and calculating how they are handling said task.
Right now, it's clear that Daws has a degree of confidence from the coaching staff, regardless of the win-loss record.
"This is a hard league on a young goaltender and Nico has been hanging in there pretty good for us the last few games," Ruff said. "There is a calmness about him that tells me that he has NHL quality for sure. He keeps the game in front of him. He's been able to read plays and make big saves inside the games that he's played in."

5.

Jack Hughes is currently on a stretch of 11 straight home games with at least one point.
He's the youngest player in franchise history to reach that mark and with three more home games this week, I wouldn't be surprised to see it extended, given the torrid pace he's been on this year.

6.

There's only one active coach who has more wins as an NHL head coach than Lindy Ruff and that's Barry Trotz who ranks third on the all-time win list. On Sunday afternoon, Ruff continued to climb the all-time list with his 775th win to tie Paul Maurice at sixth all-time, one more and he'll take sole possession and it's completely feasible he'll end the NHL season in fifth place on the list, needing just seven more wins to tie Al Arbour's 782 wins.
Two more games coached and Ruff will sit 5th all-time, tied with Arbour at 1607 games coached.

7.

There's definitely a liar amongst this group of players. During home games, I sit around the corner from where the team plays their pregame soccer. One at a time, they come running around the corner into the locker room as they are eliminated. When it's down to the last two (more often than not that's a competition between Andreas Johnsson and Tomas Tatar), they come around the corner and I always ask who won.
No one seems to have the same answer.
There were a lot of laughs.

#

8.

I told my friend Jack Wallace, the Team USA Paralympic sled hockey player, that I'd cheer for him so long as they weren't playing Canada. He said that was fine with him, and then he and his team went ahead and beat my countrymen in blistering fashion, USA winning 5-0.
Now that that's out of the way, I'm all aboard the Jack Wallace Express, watching him absolutely dominate the competition. I met Wallace late last year when I went to the NHL's Sled Hockey Classic, hosted by New Jersey for the first time. Wallace grew up a huge New Jersey Devils fan, and he still is today. He's an incredible human being, incredibly inspiring, but above all just an absolute beast of an athlete.
I wanted to take this opportunity to continue to share his story, as the team from NJD.TV put together this incredible feature of Jack and the Wallace family.

9.

Don't look now, here's another Luke Hughes highlight.

The defenseman is already up to 36 points in 36 games with Michigan as the Wolverines head into Big 10 Semifinal play against Notre Dame.
We've seen the youngest Hughes take the NCAA by storm this season, his first year at Michigan, and breaking records of all kinds.
Here's one that's awfully impressive:

10.

Just checking in here to let you know that Jack Hughes has yet to take a penalty this season.
There are just three other players in the NHL who have played 30+ games and have yet to make a trip to the penalty box. They are Riley Sheahan in Seattle (2G, 9A, 45 GP), Will Butcher in Buffalo (1G, 4A, 31 GP), and Aliaksei Proitas in Washington (3G, 6A, 33GP).
A deeper dive into what makes it so impressive is that Hughes plays the most minutes out of the four players (19:12 ATOI), Butcher follows with 16:54 ATOI, while Sheahan and Proitas play just over 11 minutes a night.

I am happy to report that my reporting on this situation has so far not cursed Hughes.