It’s no surprise that Hughes got back in the game so quickly, according to the official oral surgeons for the New Jersey Devils.
He won the gold—now it’s time for some porcelain.
Viewers watched in awe as Jersey’s own Jack Hughes scored the heroic winning goal at the Olympics on Sunday—and, perhaps, in even greater awe as he did so with a mouthful of bloodied, broken teeth after taking a high stick to the mouth in the third period. But it’s no surprise that Hughes got back in the game so quickly, according to the official oral surgeon for the New Jersey Devils, for which Hughes is a star forward.
“It’s badge-of-honor kind of stuff,” says Dr. Jason M. Auerbach, founder and co-CEO of Riverside Oral Surgery. “These are tough, tough guys….They’re so tough, they get out there irrespective of what the injury is. Once it’s determined they’re stable, they play, they do what they have to do.”
Hughes’s tenacity paid off. Team USA won its first gold medal in men’s hockey in 46 years, defeating Canada and claiming their first gold since 1980, the year they famously beat the Soviet Union in the “Miracle on Ice” game.
Auerbach, who has not spoken to or examined Hughes since his injury, says it appears that none of Hughes’s teeth were actually knocked out during the game. Rather, Auerbach assesses, it looks like Hughes totally fractured his left front tooth, fractured the edge of his right front tooth, had a tooth or two get pushed out of place, and damaged bottom teeth.
