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You don’t need to be a diehard hockey fan to know scoring goals tends to be the primary objective for players on the ice, and it would be pretty foolish to criticize them for trying to achieve it. However, one analyst was not happy with Jack Hughes after he pulled out a fancy move to try to put the puck past Igor Shesterkin, and the Devils center was just as confused as most people.
On Monday night, the New Jersey Devils made the short trek to Madison Square Garden to face off against the New York Rangers in a Metropolitan Division clash where the visiting team pulled out to a 4-0 lead midway through the second period en route to coasting to a 5-1 victory.
That second frame was a very good one for Devils center Jack Hughes, who put the puck in the net a couple of times and also added an assist with a dish to Dougie Hamilton in the closing seconds of a 5-on-3 power play.
The 23-year-old star also had a very juicy opportunity in the first period with the breakaway that saw him pull out a one-handed deke—a.k.a. “The Forsberg”—in an unsuccessful attempt to score on Rangers goalie Igor Shesterkin.
It’s pretty hard to blame Hughes for getting creative to try to score on a goalie who’s gearing up to land one of the biggest contracts in the NHL.
However, Rangers analyst Steve Valiquette opted to do exactly that in between periods during a segment on MSG Network where he bizarrely claimed Hughes “set out to embarrass Shesterkin” before going into Full Old Man Yells At Cloud Mode by accusing him of playing “Instagram hockey” by deploying the deke.
1st Period Intermission Report with Vally.
Vally had some words about Jack Hughes here that you’re doing to want to here. #NYR pic.twitter.com/5B5Q5fLWID— David 🏒 (@DaveyUpper) December 3, 2024
John Giannone did what he could to push back against that objectively absurd take, but that didn’t stop Valiquette from continuing the diatribe while asserting you never see players deploy that particular move in non-shootout situations (as What Chaos! co-host Pete Blackburn notes, former Ranger Vladimir Tarasenko used The Forsberg to score on a breakaway in 2023).
Hughes obviously didn’t get the chance to watch that segment when it aired, but he had an understandably befuddled reaction to the criticism after learning about it in the locker room during a postgame interview where he quipped, “I don’t even know what that means. I mean what does that even mean?”
I can only hope Hughes opts to go the same route if he gets a similar chance when the Devils host the Rangers on December 23rd.