VOORHEES, N.J. \u2013 The instant Jack Hughes\u2019 historic goal entered the Canadian net Sunday, Trevor Zegras jumped out of his chair, and not only because Team USA had just won Olympic gold.<\/p>\n
Zegras and Hughes are best buddies. Zegras was one of a half-dozen American Flyers glued to the locker room TV monitors at the Flyers Training Zone Sunday morning as Canada and USA battled for Olympic supremacy.<\/p>\n
The game went to 3-on-3 overtime, tied at 1. Somehow the Americans developed a 3-on-1, Zach Werenski setting up Hughes for the winner.<\/p>\n
That little play ended 46 years of American Olympic hockey frustration, much of it at the hands of Canadian players. Zegras was all smiles when the Flyers ended their practice and he spoke with reporters.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s my good buddy you\u2019re talking about!\u201d Zegras said. \u201cOvertime winner, so pretty crazy. It\u2019s the coolest thing ever.\u201d<\/p>\n
Zegras hails from Bedford, N.Y. Hughes, who plays for the New Jersey Devils, comes from Orlando, Fla. The two first met in the United States development system. Zegras also got to know Jack\u2019s brother, Quinn, an outstanding defenseman on the Minnesota Wild and a key player for the U.S. in the tournament.<\/p>\n
What was it like watching his friends capture glory?<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was sweet,\u201d Zegras said. \u201cI kind of grew up with Jack in the U.S. program. I mean they played so great. For him to get the winner was cool.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jack Hughes is an important part of the Devils\u2019 lineup. It came as no surprise that New Jersey slumped when he missed a couple months due to injury this season<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s so good,\u201d Zegras said. \u201cI\u2019m glad he had such a great tournament and capped it off with the greatest USA hockey goal we\u2019ve seen in however many years, so pretty amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Zegras said the key to stopping Canada was putting the brakes on the top line of Connor McDavid, Macklin Celebrini and Nathan MacKinnon. Credit the Tkachuk brothers, Matthew and Brady, for some of that stellar defense.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think they got on the board, those big three on the top line, which is pretty impressive,\u201d Zegras remarked. \u201cThe penalty kill was a hundred percent the whole tournament. They killed off a pretty big five-on-three. That was outstanding.\u201d<\/p>\n
Other American Flyers had similar reactions to USA\u2019s first gold medal since Lake Placid in 1980. Cam York, an Anaheim, California native, had more than a cheering interest in the game: He won $100 off Canadian Tyson Foerster on the outcome.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was one of the best games I\u2019ve ever watched,\u201d he said. \u201cJust the pace of it, all those Grade A chances. The goalies (USA\u2019s Connor Hellebuyck, Canada\u2019s Jordan Binnington) played incredible.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor USA Hockey, it\u2019s huge, been a long time coming. I\u2019m just really happy for all those guys who were able to beat that team. And I won a hundred bucks off \u2018Tys\u2019 so I was pretty happy about that.\u201d<\/p>\n
York\u2019s defense partner on the Flyers, Travis Sanheim, had to settle for silver, so it wasn\u2019t all confetti in the air after this one.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe wanted Sanny to play really well and he did,\u201d York said. \u201cObviously tough for him to lose that but happy for the Americans, too.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nick Seeler, a Minnesota product, looked and sounded like he just won the lottery.<\/p>\n
\u201cOh, boy, what a game!\u201d he gushed. \u201cSpectacular game. Two of the best teams ever going at it. USA came out on top and it was awesome.\u201d<\/p>\n
One of Hughes\u2019 notable postgame quotes that he was, \u201cso proud to be an American.\u201d Seeler concurred.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s one of the things I\u2019m most proud of,\u201d he said. \u201cThose guys on that team represented America the right way. They\u2019re proud to be there representing their country. I think if you\u2019re at the Olympic Games representing the United States of America, you should be proud. They did us proud.\u201d<\/p>\n
Noah Cates, who grew up in Stillwater, Minnesota, couldn\u2019t have been happier.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s definitely cool that they got it done on the biggest stage,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s pretty sweet. I\u2019m happy for Sanny, too, to get that experience.\u201d<\/p>\n
Christian Dvorak, a native of Illinois, noted the number of years it\u2019s been since USA won the gold, which made it all the more special.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was amazing,\u201d he said. \u201cA lot of fun to watch. It\u2019s been a while since Americans have won so it was a big one. Hellebuyck was unbelievable in that game. Made some key saves. America came through. Fun to chirp the Canadians in here.\u201d<\/p>\n
Flyers assistant coach Todd Reirden, an Illinois native who has overseen practices with head coach Rick Tocchet serving as an assistant on the Canada bench, was impressed with the play of USA from start to finish.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was super excited about the game itself,\u201d Reirden said. \u201cWe knew this morning they were going to be watching it and the cheering that was going to be going back and forth. You hope those two teams end up playing in the final. Plenty of chances both ways. Obviously, being American-born, I\u2019m happy with the United States winning and that it helped with the growth of hockey.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"VOORHEES, N.J. \u2013 The instant Jack Hughes\u2019 historic goal entered the Canadian net Sunday, Trevor Zegras jumped out…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":468823,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5112],"tags":[1468,5,4,1467,56,5205,43,5095],"class_list":{"0":"post-468822","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia-flyers","8":"tag-flyers","9":"tag-hockey","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-philadelphia","12":"tag-philadelphia-flyers","13":"tag-philadelphiaflyers","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-top-stories-tmc"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116122536493004514","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468822","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=468822"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468822\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/468823"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=468822"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=468822"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=468822"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}