{"id":811094,"date":"2026-03-08T00:02:12","date_gmt":"2026-03-08T00:02:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/811094\/"},"modified":"2026-03-08T00:02:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-08T00:02:12","slug":"team-usa-hero-jack-hughes-nets-hat-trick-in-devils-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/811094\/","title":{"rendered":"Team USA hero Jack Hughes nets hat trick in Devils’ win"},"content":{"rendered":"

NEWARK, N.J. — Team USA hero Jack Hughes<\/a> had a hat trick and an assist, Nico Hischier<\/a> scored the go-ahead goal, and the New Jersey Devils<\/a> defeated the rival New York Rangers<\/a> 6-3<\/a> on Saturday for their fourth straight win.<\/p>\n

Hischier scored a power-play goal at 8:05 of the third — his team-leading 21st — to give the Devils a 4-3 lead before Hughes scored twice, including one into an empty net, for his fourth career hat trick.<\/p>\n

Jesper Bratt<\/a> and Dawson Mercer<\/a> also scored for the Devils, who are nine points out of a playoff spot. Bratt and Connor Brown<\/a> had two assists each and Jacob Markstrom<\/a> made 17 saves.<\/p>\n

Will Borgen<\/a>, Vladislav Gavrikov<\/a> and Will Cuylle<\/a> scored for the last-place Rangers, who were coming off a 6-2 home win over Toronto on Thursday. New York is 4-12-3 since winning the Winter Classic over Florida on Jan. 2.<\/p>\n

Bratt opened the scoring 1:06 into the contest, beating Jonathan Quick<\/a> for his 14th goal.<\/p>\n

Borgen tied it at 6:26, converting a pass from Vincent Trocheck<\/a>, who was still a Ranger on Saturday after being the subject of trade rumors for weeks heading into Friday’s deadline.<\/p>\n

Gavrikov put New York ahead at 8:36 of the first. But Mercer tied the game on the power play at 19:47 for his 200th career point.<\/p>\n

Hughes, who now has 24 career goals against the Rangers, put New Jersey up 3-2 on the power play at 15:52 of the second, his first goal since scoring the gold medal-winning goal for Team USA at the Winter Olympics on Feb. 22.<\/p>\n

He scored his second on a breakaway at 16:56 of the third before finishing his hat trick with an empty-net goal as the home crowded serenaded him with chants of “USA, USA!”<\/p>\n

Before the game, Hughes met Elsa Garrison, the Olympic photographer who shot his gold-winning, tooth-less smile as he donned an American flag two weeks ago after the Team USA’s overtime win over Canada.<\/p>\n

According to ESPN Research, the hat trick was Hughes’ fourth of his NHL career hat trick. The franchise lead, eight, is held by former forward Patrik Elias<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Cuylle had tied the contest for third time at 16:53 of the second. And Quick made 29 saves in the loss.<\/p>\n

The Associated Press contributed to this report.<\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2026 ESPN Internet Ventures. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEWARK, N.J. — Team USA hero Jack Hughes had a hat trick and an assist, Nico Hischier scored…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":811095,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5311],"tags":[234254,21617,234253,192303,77925,12,13828,49,978,659],"class_list":["post-811094","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-234254","tag-espn","tag-hughes-jack","tag-new-jersey-devils","tag-new-york-rangers","tag-news","tag-nhl","tag-united-states","tag-us","tag-usa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116190625420827301","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/811094","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=811094"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/811094\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/811095"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=811094"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=811094"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=811094"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}