The two are formidable pair.
Hughes, a left shot who was captain for the bronze-medal winning United States at the 2023 IIHF World Junior Championship, and Nemec, a righty who captained Slovakia at the same tournament, had more than 175 minutes of ice time together for a position devastated by injury. Devils defenseman Dougie Hamilton tore a pectoral muscle Nov. 28 and missed the final 62 games of the season. Jonas Siegenthaler missed 25 games because of separate foot and concussion injuries, and Brendan Smith was sidelined 10 games with a knee injury.
“It’s definitely not easy,” Hischier said. “I got into the League as an 18-year-old, so I know a little bit about that myself. As a defenseman, it’s even harder going against all these strong guys in front of the net. They can outsmart them. You can just tell they’re both players that have an impact on the ice.”
The Devils hired Sheldon Keefe as coach to replace Travis Green on Thursday. They finished seventh in the eight-team Metropolitan Division, 10 points back of the Washington Capitals for the second wild card into the playoffs from the Eastern Conference after advancing to the second round last year. They have failed to qualify 10 times in 12 seasons.
Nemec knows he and Hughes are key to correcting that.
“But we are still young,” Nemec said. “You never know what’s going to happen. We played some games together and I think we were pretty good.
“It should be better next year, for sure.”
