{"id":462877,"date":"2026-02-19T02:44:37","date_gmt":"2026-02-19T02:44:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/462877\/"},"modified":"2026-02-19T02:44:37","modified_gmt":"2026-02-19T02:44:37","slug":"mn-wild-superstar-quinn-hughes-saves-team-usa-in-olympic-ot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/462877\/","title":{"rendered":"MN Wild Superstar Quinn Hughes Saves Team USA in Olympic OT"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<img width=\"788\" height=\"444\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/54ac3b88-3c0a-458f-af79-b4802eaa2315.webp.jpeg\" class=\"attachment-medium size-medium tpd-force-16x9-aspect-ratio wp-post-image\" alt=\"Minnesota Wild defenseman Quinn Hughes - Team USA - 2026 Winter Olympics\" decoding=\"sync\" loading=\"eager\"   fetchpriority=\"high\"\/>Credit: Amber Searls-Imagn Images\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>Team USA played its first medal round game of the 2026 Winter Olympics on Wednesday against Sweden, a matchup in Milan that featured <a href=\"https:\/\/www.minnesotasportsfan.com\/minnesota-wild\/injury-news-quinn-hughes-pre-olympics-team-usa-hockey\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">over a half-dozen<\/a> Minnesota Wild players between the two teams.<\/p>\n<p>MN Wild star Quinn Hughes scores OT winner for Team USA<\/p>\n<p>After the U.S. took a 1-0 first period lead, they failed to get another puck over the Swedish goal line four 2.5 periods, which almost cost them a chance to move on when NY Rangers Captain Mika Zibanejad tied the game with just over one minute remaining in the third period.<\/p>\n<p>That sent the contest into overtime, where had the United States lost, they would have been out of contention for the Gold Medal. Instead, the Minnesota Wild\u2019s newly acquired superstar defenseman, Quinn Hughes, put on his American Flag superhero cape, scoring the OT winner. It was his sixth point of the tournament (second goal).<\/p>\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">QUINN HUGHES! USA WINS! \ud83e\udd85 <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/WxbCRKxPiO\" rel=\"nofollow\">pic.twitter.com\/WxbCRKxPiO<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 NBC Olympics &amp; Paralympics (@NBCOlympics) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/NBCOlympics\/status\/2024254919809683844?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">February 18, 2026<\/a> <\/p>\n<p>Related: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.minnesotasportsfan.com\/minnesota-wild\/devils-edit-quinn-hughes-out-olympic-photo\/\" type=\"post\" id=\"81624\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">NJ Devils Edit MN Wild Star Out of Olympic Photo<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Beyond Hughes, the Red, White and Blue roster standouts Quinn Hughes, Matt Boldy and Brock Faber. Sweden is anchored by Joel Eriksson Ek up the middle. Marcus Johansson also made the club, as did both goalies Filip Gustavsson and Jesper Wallstedt \u2014 neither of whom played today. Jonas Brodin is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.minnesotasportsfan.com\/minnesota-wild\/jonas-brodin-out-olympics-sweden\/\" type=\"post\" id=\"79749\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">out due to injury<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Clearly, the Swedes made the correct call in net because Jacob Markstrom was incredible against the high-powered American lineup, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/olympics-mens-ice-hockey\/boxscore\/_\/gameId\/401845790\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">stopping<\/a> 38 of 40 U.S. shots on goal. Meanwhile, Connor Hellebuyck faced just 28 of 30 Swedish shots. What matters, however, is that the American goaltender stopped one more shot that Markstrom.<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tMentioned in this article: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.minnesotasportsfan.com\/tag\/olympics\/\" rel=\"tag nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Olympics<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.minnesotasportsfan.com\/tag\/quinn-hughes\/\" rel=\"tag nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Quinn Hughes<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.minnesotasportsfan.com\/tag\/team-usa\/\" rel=\"tag nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Team USA<\/a> <\/p>\n<p class=\"categories single-categories\">More About:<a href=\"https:\/\/www.minnesotasportsfan.com\/category\/minnesota-wild\/\" rel=\"tag nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Minnesota Wild<\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"margin: 1rem auto; padding: 1rem 0; border-top: 1px solid #e4e4e4; border-bottom: 1px solid #e4e4e4;\"><a class=\"google-preferred-source\" href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/preferences\/source?q=https:\/\/www.minnesotasportsfan.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" aria-label=\"Add MinnesotaSportsFan as a preferred source on Google.\">Add MinnesotaSportsFan as a preferred source on Google.<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/google_preferred_source_badge.png\" alt=\"Add MinnesotaSportsFan as a preferred source on Google.\" width=\"90\" height=\"28\" loading=\"lazy\" style=\"margin: 0 0 0 10px;\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t<script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Credit: Amber Searls-Imagn Images Team USA played its first medal round game of the 2026 Winter Olympics on&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":462878,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5118],"tags":[5,161,38,5280,4,2602,1496,3255,162],"class_list":{"0":"post-462877","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-minnesota-wild","8":"tag-hockey","9":"tag-minnesota","10":"tag-minnesota-wild","11":"tag-minnesotawild","12":"tag-nhl","13":"tag-olympics","14":"tag-quinn-hughes","15":"tag-team-usa","16":"tag-wild"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116095004544619699","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462877","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=462877"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/462877\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/462878"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=462877"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=462877"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=462877"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}