“Johnny and Matty should be here,” he told reporters after the game, per People, “and that is still the biggest loss that all of us at USA hockey, their families, our family, has gone through.”
But the 29-year-old found a heartwarming silver lining, theorizing that the late Columbus Blue Jackets winger may have had a hand in Team USA’s success on the ice.
“I think part of the puck not going in our net was somehow, that he’s standing there doing something,” he continued, joking that Johnny and Matthew had somehow “put a spell around our net where that puck didn’t go in.”