{"id":462617,"date":"2026-02-06T16:43:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-06T16:43:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/462617\/"},"modified":"2026-02-06T16:43:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-06T16:43:08","slug":"avery-hayes-says-he-kind-of-blacked-out-after-two-goals-in-his-nhl-debut","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/462617\/","title":{"rendered":"Avery Hayes says he \u201ckind of blacked out\u201d after two goals in his NHL debut"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Avery Hayes made his NHL debut for the Pittsburgh Penguins on Thursday night and it\u2019s safe to say it was a memorable start for the 23-year-old rookie.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Hayes, who was called up from the AHL earlier in the day ahead of the team\u2019s game against the Buffalo Sabres, scored two goals in the first period of his first NHL game.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">\u201cHonestly, I can\u2019t say much right now,\u201d Hayes said after the first period ended during an interview with SportsnNet Pittsburgh\u2019s Hailey Hunter. \u201cI kind of blacked out, but it was a big goal for the team which is most important and yeah, I just gotta keep this thing going.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Hayes said that the process of being called up and making his debut in Buffalo was a quick turnaround, but said that was probably a good thing because it didn\u2019t give him time to get stressed about the situation.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">\u201cWe drove in and I was ready to go and it was fun,\u201d Hayes said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">With two or more goals in his NHL debut, Hayes joins Jake Guentzel and Rob Brown as the only other Pittsburgh Penguins players to match that achievement.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Prior to being called up, Hayes had scored 13 goals with 10 assists in 31 games for Wilkes-Barre\/Scranton in the AHL this season.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Time will tell if Hayes will end up sticking around on the Penguins\u2019 roster when the team returns from the NHL\u2019s Olympic break.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Avery Hayes made his NHL debut for the Pittsburgh Penguins on Thursday night and it\u2019s safe to say&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":462618,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,1325,575,85],"class_list":["post-462617","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-general","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462617","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=462617"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462617\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/462618"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=462617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=462617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=462617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}