[Flannery] Nico and Jake on Luke Hughes’ performance tonight.
January 5, 2026
[Flannery] Nico and Jake on Luke Hughes’ performance tonight.
17 comments
“But Nico isn’t a good leader” -dumbasses also who boo Luke
Luke’s gonna be the scapegoat for our powerplay being atrocious and offense being nonexistent. We scored one goal. That’s all anyone needs to know about this game
Good on captain and allen to have his back. I get being frustrated with the teams performance but let’s not demoralize them anymore than they already are.
We have a great locker room, great young talent, and a very good coach. We need our GM to fix our forward depth. Our inability to score consistently without 86-63-13-28 being involved in the play is the biggest problem.
I just watched Luke’s interview. Dude looks exhausted. I’m still frustrated with him but even I feel bad for him.
The “He’s just a kid” thing doesn’t really work when hes making 9 million dollars a year
Our idiot fans coming down on Allen in 3… 2….
They’re pros, it’ll roll off them.
It wouldn’t matter if the the rest of the Devils didn’t lose yet again to their biggest rival.
If I’m a player on this team I’m fucking pissed the fans turned on Luke like that. That’s Leafs fan throwing jersey on the ice after a mid-season loss level of petty garbage. You don’t have to be happy about the mistakes or excuse them, but you also don’t have to be a classless fair weather asshole either.
Kid’s logging over 23 minutes a night in what’s essentially his sophomore (edit: scratch that, Junior) season, and being asked to handle a lot more responsibility than prior. He’s going to be fine and any fans overly on him need to shelf it. Different scenario if it’s another 2 years from now and we’re having the same conversation.
There’s a reason he was the #4th overall pick and able to get him, compared to runaway #1, and that’s because it was known that while his offensive ability and skating was unquestionably good, he wasn’t a fully fleshed out D-Man. These are the experiences part of the process into becoming a better player. Having the leadership with guys like Nico, and veteran Tendy in Allen behind him are kind of people who allow young guys to fully develop naturally.
Best thing for Luke right now is the support from his teammates.
“booing doesn’t help, I understand the frustration” you don’t understand the frustration then, the booing isn’t to help, its an expression of frustration sitting in a tax payer funded arena, in expensive seats, drinking overpriced beer and eating food that gives you diarrhea all while watching a team out of the playoffs for the 8th time in 10 years. Not saying I would have booed, but the frustration has reached a boiling point and tonight Luke was on the receiving end of it, not entirely unfairly imo.
I mean you look at the replays of Luke making his mistakes and he knows it. He’s not making excuses he’s no prima Donna. Maybe you boo once after a second mistake and then you gotta support him. It’s just doomer mentality to boo when we were down by one. It’s just petty and as cringe as the canes booing Haula after like 5+ years. Let’s not be like them
Glad the team is supporting him and not trying to throw him under the bus. I’m sure he got enough of it in the locker room.
The best he can do is try to improve and limit his mistakes. Tuesday he can try to redeem himself.
Luke is not a 9 million dollar player *this year* but he never was going to be. The idea is getting him locked in for that now while the cap raises way up over the rest of the deal, so that it is a great contract 3-4 years from now. I’m still in favor of this signing and am high on Luke long term. Development/progress is not linear.
With that said, he isn’t living up to even the bottom value of his contract if you put it on a curve.
People didn’t boo because of 2 own goals. They booed because of 2 own goals *along with* a not-very-good half of a season (minus a handful of games where he was stellar) where he held out the entire summer for a huge contract, which handicapped us in numerous ways.
I guess respect to the players sticking up for him (though what else are they going to do?), and much more respect for Luke facing the music and taking questions from reporters… but he deserved *some* boos.
Every time he touched the puck? No. And do others deserve a lot more boos but aren’t getting any? Yes. Does this entire team deserve to be booed a bit? Yes.
But after his play so far this year and then this game, he deserved *some* boos. If you’re going to demand and sign that size of contract, you gotta be willing to answer when you’re not even remotely living up to it. And again, it isn’t that I think this year he’d play like a 9 million dollar guy… but I expect him to *at least* play like a 5m guy this year.
The booing is not for these two plays. It’s for a few years of pee-wee-level mistakes from a player who is touted as a cornerstone of the teams future and who has repeatedly demonstrated they won’t learn from those mistakes.
The org doesn’t seem to want to hold him accountable, but the fans sure do.
I’m loving the bonding from the team despite the garbage effort. Good for playoff push
17 comments
“But Nico isn’t a good leader” -dumbasses also who boo Luke
Luke’s gonna be the scapegoat for our powerplay being atrocious and offense being nonexistent. We scored one goal. That’s all anyone needs to know about this game
Good on captain and allen to have his back. I get being frustrated with the teams performance but let’s not demoralize them anymore than they already are.
We have a great locker room, great young talent, and a very good coach. We need our GM to fix our forward depth. Our inability to score consistently without 86-63-13-28 being involved in the play is the biggest problem.
I just watched Luke’s interview. Dude looks exhausted. I’m still frustrated with him but even I feel bad for him.
The “He’s just a kid” thing doesn’t really work when hes making 9 million dollars a year
Our idiot fans coming down on Allen in 3… 2….
They’re pros, it’ll roll off them.
It wouldn’t matter if the the rest of the Devils didn’t lose yet again to their biggest rival.
If I’m a player on this team I’m fucking pissed the fans turned on Luke like that. That’s Leafs fan throwing jersey on the ice after a mid-season loss level of petty garbage. You don’t have to be happy about the mistakes or excuse them, but you also don’t have to be a classless fair weather asshole either.
Kid’s logging over 23 minutes a night in what’s essentially his sophomore (edit: scratch that, Junior) season, and being asked to handle a lot more responsibility than prior. He’s going to be fine and any fans overly on him need to shelf it. Different scenario if it’s another 2 years from now and we’re having the same conversation.
There’s a reason he was the #4th overall pick and able to get him, compared to runaway #1, and that’s because it was known that while his offensive ability and skating was unquestionably good, he wasn’t a fully fleshed out D-Man. These are the experiences part of the process into becoming a better player. Having the leadership with guys like Nico, and veteran Tendy in Allen behind him are kind of people who allow young guys to fully develop naturally.
Best thing for Luke right now is the support from his teammates.
“booing doesn’t help, I understand the frustration” you don’t understand the frustration then, the booing isn’t to help, its an expression of frustration sitting in a tax payer funded arena, in expensive seats, drinking overpriced beer and eating food that gives you diarrhea all while watching a team out of the playoffs for the 8th time in 10 years. Not saying I would have booed, but the frustration has reached a boiling point and tonight Luke was on the receiving end of it, not entirely unfairly imo.
I mean you look at the replays of Luke making his mistakes and he knows it. He’s not making excuses he’s no prima Donna. Maybe you boo once after a second mistake and then you gotta support him. It’s just doomer mentality to boo when we were down by one. It’s just petty and as cringe as the canes booing Haula after like 5+ years. Let’s not be like them
Glad the team is supporting him and not trying to throw him under the bus. I’m sure he got enough of it in the locker room.
The best he can do is try to improve and limit his mistakes. Tuesday he can try to redeem himself.
Luke is not a 9 million dollar player *this year* but he never was going to be. The idea is getting him locked in for that now while the cap raises way up over the rest of the deal, so that it is a great contract 3-4 years from now. I’m still in favor of this signing and am high on Luke long term. Development/progress is not linear.
With that said, he isn’t living up to even the bottom value of his contract if you put it on a curve.
People didn’t boo because of 2 own goals. They booed because of 2 own goals *along with* a not-very-good half of a season (minus a handful of games where he was stellar) where he held out the entire summer for a huge contract, which handicapped us in numerous ways.
I guess respect to the players sticking up for him (though what else are they going to do?), and much more respect for Luke facing the music and taking questions from reporters… but he deserved *some* boos.
Every time he touched the puck? No. And do others deserve a lot more boos but aren’t getting any? Yes. Does this entire team deserve to be booed a bit? Yes.
But after his play so far this year and then this game, he deserved *some* boos. If you’re going to demand and sign that size of contract, you gotta be willing to answer when you’re not even remotely living up to it. And again, it isn’t that I think this year he’d play like a 9 million dollar guy… but I expect him to *at least* play like a 5m guy this year.
The booing is not for these two plays. It’s for a few years of pee-wee-level mistakes from a player who is touted as a cornerstone of the teams future and who has repeatedly demonstrated they won’t learn from those mistakes.
The org doesn’t seem to want to hold him accountable, but the fans sure do.
I’m loving the bonding from the team despite the garbage effort. Good for playoff push