The NHL has several classic hockey smiles that feature missing or broken teeth. New Jersey Devils' Jack Hughes has become a part of that club after his teeth were broken in the Olympic gold medal game. Dr. Anjali Rajpal explains the process behind repairing a hockey smile.
When Jack Hughes joked about breaking his teeth following Team USA's gold medal win over Canada, he wasn't just making light of a brutal high stick. He was leaning into one of hockey's oldest traditions.
In hockey, a gap-toothed grin is widely recognized as a badge of honor, a signature of a player's willingness to suffer pain for victory.
“They feel like it’s a worthy sacrifice because they’re so intently focused on winning and playing hard,” cosmetic dentist, Dr. Anjali Rajpal of Beverly Hills Dental Arts, told The Hockey News. “They don’t mind showing off that they don’t have any teeth.”
That mentality isn’t new. Veterans such as Los Angeles Kings defenseman Drew Doughty have famously embraced the so-called “hockey smile.” Rajpal even recalled that Doughty “was fine not having two front teeth.” For many pros, permanent fixes may feel pointless mid-career.
“They’re probably going to get hit again,” she said. “So to me, it’s just a routine, regular thing that these hockey players expect to happen.”
For Hughes, he took a stick to the mouth - a four-minute penalty to Canada's Sam Bennett - and skated away with visible destruction to his smile.
It may look like only a couple of teeth were visibly damaged by the hit, but Dr. Rajpal says there was more damage done than what shows up in a post-game photo.
More Than Just A Chip
Rajpal reviewed images of Hughes’ injury and believes the damage likely extended well beyond surface enamel.
“It wasn’t just one tooth,” she said. “With an impact like that, whether it’s a hockey stick or falling on ice, the teeth are fragile. If you hit them hard enough, they can fracture or completely fall out.”
In Hughes’ case, she suspects the upper front teeth suffered deep fractures, possibly into the nerve.
“When you’re really young, your nerve chambers are actually really big,” Rajpal explained. “So you’re more likely to get into the nerve, and once you touch it, it’s crazy sensitive.”
Jack Hughes (Ed Mulholland-Imagn Images)Adrenaline can mask that pain in the moment, which we clearly saw from Hughes’ as he got up and scored the winning goal shortly after the trauma. But the aftermath is less forgiving.
If the nerve is compromised, immediate treatment is critical. “I would have the beginning stages of a root canal started right away, just to get the nerve removed and seal it off so he’s not in massive pain.”
Teeth that are displaced, as in pushed out of alignment but not fully knocked out, also need to be repositioned and stabilized quickly. Rajpal said she saw this in a review of the photos.
“They can be gently pushed back into place and held with a wire retainer so they don’t stay loose,” she said.
The 'Golden Hour' If A Tooth Is Knocked Out
If a tooth is fully avulsed, root and all, the clock starts ticking immediately.
“You want to get that tooth put back in literally within 30 to 60 minutes,” Rajpal said. “You don’t want the ligament and nerve vasculature to completely die.”
Until a dentist can reinsert it, the tooth should be “kept in milk, saliva, or a supportive solution,” she advised. Miss that window, and the odds of long-term survival drop significantly.
The Domino Effect Of Doing Nothing
While hockey culture may be proud of missing teeth, the jaw is not.
“When you lose a tooth and don’t replace anything in that space, other teeth will shift in that space,” Rajpal said. “You don’t want your bite to destabilize."
Adjacent teeth lean inward. The opposing tooth can drift upward or downward into the gap. Over time, that movement can expose roots and even lead to additional tooth loss.
“You don’t want the surrounding teeth jeopardized because of one missing tooth,” she said.
Even if there’s no immediate pain, trauma can have delayed consequences. “The nerve can end up dying down the road, maybe in a couple months or years.”
Temporary Fixes For The Camera
With Olympic champions facing cameras within minutes of the final horn, cosmetic dentistry has adapted.
“You can design temporary pieces pretty quickly,” Rajpal said.
Options include bonded temporary bridges, removable partial dentures - commonly called “flippers” - or even Invisalign-style retainers filled with tooth-coloured material.
“They can look like they have teeth right away,” she said.
Permanent implants, however, are more complicated. Because they require surgery and months of healing, many contact-sport athletes wait.
“If you’re likely to get hit over again, some of these restorations might not hold up either,” Rajpal said. “That’s why some things aren’t even worth redoing right away.”
The Best Defense
Even though Hughes bit gold through the pain, prevention matters. That includes the usage of a custom-fitted mouthguard.
“It’s important to make sure the bite is balanced really well,” Rajpal said of custom mouthguards. Store-bought versions don’t account for individual bite alignment and can even create jaw-joint issues.
For pros, vigilance doesn’t stop there. “We see our patients every three or four months,” she said. Regular monitoring helps catch silent fractures, infections or delayed nerve death before they become bigger problems.
Hughes may wear his Olympic damage with pride, and in hockey lore, that grin will always carry weight. But behind the scenes, modern sports dentistry is about preserving something more important than an image.
As Rajpal put it: protect the arch, stabilize what you can, monitor everything closely, and save the full smile restoration for the day the skates come off for good.
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