MILAN — Forty-six years to the day after the U.S. men’s hockey team paved the way to Olympic gold with a miracle, it earned gold again, this time with a sudden-death stunner.
Jack Hughes instantly moved into the annals of U.S. Winter Olympic history when he received a pass from Zach Werenski 1:41 into overtime and fired the puck between the legs of Canadian goaltender Jordan Binnington to beat Canada 2-1 and send Santagiulia Arena into a raucous celebration.
“This is all about our country right now. I love the USA,” Hughes told NBC after the game. “I love my teammates.”
It marked only the third time the U.S. men won Olympic gold, following wins in 1960 and the “Miracle on Ice” team that shocked the Soviet Union on Feb. 22, 1980, then later went on to beat Finland in the gold-medal game.
The U.S. had been denied gold medals by Canada in 2002 and 2010. Keith Tkachuk, the father of U.S. brothers Matthew and Brady Tkachuk, had played in that 2002 loss to Canada, and Brady said although he had not heard many stories about the game, “basically all I’ve heard is that there’s just a lot of regret if you don’t win.”
There were no U.S. regrets Sunday, just a rumble of crowd noise inside a sold-out arena filled overwhelmingly with Canadian fans as the score went final and the U.S. grabbed a gold medal where multiple generations had failed.
Hughes called the win, played on the final day of the Milan Cortina Winter Olympics — the first played with NHL players since 2014 — “a ballsy win. That’s American hockey right there.”
The victory earned the U.S. a golden sweep in hockey at these Winter Games, coming three days after the U.S. women also beat Canada in overtime.
In the extra period Sunday, with the teams reduced from five-on-five to three-on-three, the U.S. opened with Auston Matthews, Jack Hughes and Matt Boldy and immediately created a shot for Hughes, who whipped the puck directly toward the net — right into the left-handed glove of Binnington.
But the U.S. maintained pressure on Canada, which had largely dominated possession when at equal strength at five-on-five but couldn’t keep up in extra time with the ice more open.
Moments later, Hughes swooped into position for Werenski’s pass, getting his shot off just before Canada’s Connor McDavid could get in front for a block. One year earlier, McDavid had scored Canada’s game-winning goal to beat the U.S. in a heated Four Nations Face-Off tournament that set the stage for Sunday’s gold-medal showdown.
After U.S. players mobbed Hughes near the boards following his goal, teammates including Brady Tkachuk took a lap around the rink holding aloft a jersey for Johnny Gaudreau, the American star who was killed along with his brother, Matthew, in August 2024, when they were struck by a driver while riding bicycles near their New Jersey hometown.
Hughes called U.S. goaltender Connor Hellebuyck the teammate with the best performance of the afternoon, after he recorded 41 saves while giving up just one goal, to Cale Makar in the second period.
Boldy gave the U.S. a 1-0 lead six minutes into the opening period. As Boldy split two defenders, he flipped the puck into the air, batted it up again and then buried it in the net.
“Somehow [the puck] just stuck with me and got lucky on the goal,” Boldy said.
Canada outshot the U.S. 19-8 in the second period but could only produce Makar’s goal to level the score.
Canada then opened the third period as the aggressor again, taking eight of the period’s first nine shots to nearly double the number of U.S. attempts, 36-17.
Under that constant pressure, Hellebuyck stretched, lunged and twisted to deny repeated Canadian rushes, at one point using his stick to push away the puck, only inches before it crossed the goal line. Canada nearly took a 2-1 lead again when a puck went over Hellebuyck’s pads and headed toward the net, only for Charlie McAvoy of the U.S. to swat it with his glove.
