{"id":493790,"date":"2026-02-23T09:16:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-23T09:16:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/493790\/"},"modified":"2026-02-23T09:16:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-23T09:16:09","slug":"jack-hughes-becomes-u-s-hockey-hero-by-scoring-golden-goal-against-canada","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/493790\/","title":{"rendered":"Jack Hughes becomes U.S. hockey hero by scoring ‘Golden Goal’ against Canada"},"content":{"rendered":"

McDavid never got a good shot. The puck went behind the net. Hughes kicked it out to defenseman Zach Werenski<\/a> in the corner. Werenski got it up to Hughes in the middle of the ice. He chipped it up past Canadian defenseman Cale Makar<\/a>, and Werenski chased it down in Canada\u2019s zone.<\/p>\n

Werenski won a quick puck battle with forward Nathan MacKinnon<\/a>, gained possession low in the right face-off circle and saw Hughes wide open across the ice in the left circle.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018Z\u2019 found me,\u201d Hughes said.<\/p>\n

Hughes buried his shot under Canadian goalie Jordan Binnington<\/a>\u2019s left pad.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve always known how good Jack is,\u201d Werenski said, \u201cbut I think he reminded the world how good he is tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hughes did that throughout the tournament, overcoming personal adversity to be at the center of the biggest moment.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s gotten used to it.<\/p>\n

Hughes has gone through so much in his career at just 24 years old, including multiple shoulder surgeries, a fluke hand injury this season that kept him out for 18 games, and even a lower-body injury that prevented him from playing in the last three games before the Olympics.<\/p>\n

He arrived here healthy enough to play at the start of the tournament, but he was still relegated to the fourth line as a right winger in Team USA’s first game against Team Latvia during the preliminary round on Feb. 12.<\/p>\n

Hughes is a No. 1 center for the New Jersey Devils. He has never been on the fourth line.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously, the last couple of years a lot of things have happened to me, but I was talking about it earlier, it\u2019s not even so much the injuries, it\u2019s like your whole [career] you\u2019re going up against things, there\u2019s always new adversity, new challenges,\u201d Hughes said. \u201cEvery single player in that game tonight, Canada and U.S., when they were six, seven, eight years old, every single player went through so many things. You\u2019re just grinding, and you\u2019re grinding, and you\u2019re working your way up. \u2026 It\u2019s a journey. It\u2019s the whole lifetime of work and I\u2019m just a part of that.\u201d<\/p>\n

He quickly climbed the U.S. depth chart with his play, finishing the tournament with seven points on four goals and three assists in six games.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think Jack had a terrific tournament from the first game on,\u201d Sullivan said. \u201cThe goals he scored were big-time goals. It\u2019s an emotional roller coaster when you go through these experiences, and I just think Jack was at the center of a lot of the good things that happened for our team.\u201d<\/p>\n

He was the centerpiece of the greatest thing to happen for Team USA since 1980: a cracked tooth, and a bloody, sweaty American hockey hero.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m happy it happened to him,\u201d Quinn Hughes said. \u201cMy best friend, but also a special player.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"McDavid never got a good shot. The puck went behind the net. Hughes kicked it out to defenseman…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":493791,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-493790","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/493790","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=493790"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/493790\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/493791"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=493790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=493790"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=493790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}