BOSTON — Quinn Hughes might not be coming after all.
The star defenseman practiced in a red noncontact jersey with the Vancouver Canucks on Tuesday, hours after United States coach Mike Sullivan said he was headed to the 4 Nations Face-Off.
“Quinn Hughes is coming,” Sullivan said.
It was unclear in the first place whether Hughes would be able to play for the U.S. against Canada in the championship game at TD Garden on Thursday (8 p.m. ET; Disney+, ESPN+, ESPN, SN, TVAS).
It remains unclear, though Hughes made it sound unlikely.
“I think the plan was to just see how my skate went today,” Hughes told reporters in Vancouver. “I feel like I felt pretty good. I mean, the rules are the rules. I can’t play unless anyone else gets injured, and I obviously don’t want to see anyone get injured. So, yeah, I think that’s where we’re at.”
Hughes won the Norris Trophy as the NHL’s best defenseman last season and was one of the first six players named to the U.S. roster on June 28. The 25-year-old has 59 points (14 goals, 45 points) in 47 games this season, which leads Vancouver and is tied for second among NHL defensemen.
But he missed the Canucks’ final four games before the 4 Nations Face-Off because of an undisclosed injury and was replaced on the U.S. roster by defenseman Jake Sanderson on Feb. 9.
Sanderson got to play in the United States’ 2-1 loss to Sweden here on Monday with defenseman Charlie McAvoy missing the game because of an upper-body injury. The Boston Bruins announced on Tuesday that McAvoy was admitted to Massachusetts General Hospital on Monday to undergo testing and will not play in the championship game.
“Right now, we’re just taking each day as it comes,” Sullivan said. “We’re going to take it one day at a time. We’ll see what potential options might be available for us for the championship game, and then we’ll make decisions accordingly from there.”
But the Americans apparently still have six healthy defensemen and cannot add anyone to the roster unless someone is ill or injured.
The Canadians added defenseman Thomas Harley to their roster for their 3-1 loss to the Americans at Bell Centre in Montreal on Saturday after losing Shea Theodore to an upper-body injury and Cale Makar to an illness. When Makar returned for their 5-3 win against Finland here on Monday, Harley could not play.
When asked if he was headed back east, Hughes said: “Um, I mean, I really want to, and [the tournament has] obviously been really hard to watch. Want to play, but I guess, from what I can understand, the rules are the rules.
“Canada was able to bring Harley in because Theodore got injured and Makar was sick, so they were down to five [defensemen]. In the U.S. circumstance, with Charlie going down, they still have their six ‘D,’ so I think that is where it changes my position a little bit.
“So, I think if they had to do it over again, they would allow teams to bring a couple extra players, but the League’s done a great job putting this event together. It’s been fun to watch, hard for me to watch, but close with a lot of those USA guys and proud of how they’ve been playing.
“The six ‘D’ that have been there, of course, I want to play, but they’ve gotten us to the point where we’re in a championship game now, and those guys also deserve to play. But in saying that, it’s obviously been hard for me. I’m a competitor and feel like I want to play and need to be there.”
Hughes said it was “extremely hard” to withdraw from the U.S. roster originally, and he seemed to thank U.S. general manager Bill Guerin for understanding why he couldn’t play then and why he can’t come to Boston now.
He is also the Canucks captain and expects to return to their lineup for their next game, at the Vegas Golden Knights on Saturday (10 p.m. ET; SCRIPPS, CITY, SN, CBC). Vancouver currently holds the second wild card into the Stanley Cup Playoffs from the Western Conference with 27 games to go.
“Not to be dramatic, but it was extremely hard,” Hughes said. “I think it’s been something I’ve been looking forward to for a long time, and yeah, I mean, I’ve got to thank Bill Guerin for how patient he was with me, not only 10 days ago but even last night and the last 24 hours. He understood how much I wanted to play and also what my obligations were to the Canucks.
“Really what it came down to, I just wasn’t healthy enough where I wasn’t sure that I [couldn’t] get worse, and I felt like I couldn’t be crawling back to Vancouver at the end of that tournament where now I’m missing more Canucks games.
“So, if there’s a positive, I should be ready to go next game against Vegas. But in saying that, you know, if I didn’t have to worry about any of that other stuff, I would have been there in a second and playing with what I got, but had to look at the big picture a little bit.”
Will Hughes have an overnight bag packed just in case?
“I guess we’ll just see what happens,” he said. “I’ll be in touch with those guys and just go from there. … I guess I could fly down there and then fly back, but we’ll just see where this goes.”
