SUNRISE, Fla. — Wayne Gretzky walked into the green room at TNT studios, looked at ringleader Liam McHugh and fellow analysts Paul Bissonnette, Anson Carter and Henrik Lundqvist and chirped, “Hope we don’t get overtime tonight, boys.”

The production people, well-trained to never, ever say the “O” word, gasped.

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“Don’t say overtime!” they told the Great One.

Gretzky laughed: “Do you really think it makes any difference whether I say it or not?”

Safe to say Gretzky won’t make that mistake again.

Several hours later, Thursday night turned into Friday morning and there was no end in sight to the opening game of the Eastern Conference final between the Panthers and Hurricanes.

“I joked with my wife that they should have put a catheter in me,” Carter said.

Viewers may not realize it, but the TNT panel usually watches a game from a viewing room before coming on air between periods. But during overtime in the playoffs, panelists are glued to the desk. That’s because when a game ends, the telecast could be thrown to them in seconds.

So they wait in their chairs, wired up and ready to go.

That meant that throughout those four overtime periods plus four overtime intermission shows, McHugh, Gretzky, Bissonnette, Carter and Lundqvist couldn’t stray far or for long. The restlessness was inundating. Bissonnette walked to a corner to talk with the audio tech, then found a lounge chair. Gretzky and Lundqvist began watching from different monitors, changing it up almost like they were putting on rally caps to spur a game-ending goal.

Gretzky didn’t believe in jinxes before the game. Now he was starting to. He even said on the air that everybody loves playoff OT, but “enough’s enough.”

“It got quiet there for a while,” McHugh said. “It was getting late and you’re kind of saving it for the air. But it got to the point where we’re all like, ‘Someone has to score.’ Between the benches, (Keith Jones) said at one point, ‘This one could just go on and on and on.’ And I felt in Jonesy’s mind that he was trying to do the reverse jinx.”

In double overtime, the camera showed the bench, and Gretzky said, “Wow, look at that. We’re going to be here a while.” Asked why, he explained, “The players are so tired they’re not talking to each other. They’re just sitting there.”

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As time ticked, everybody got more tired, ragged and grouchy.

Well, almost everybody.

“Hank still didn’t have a wrinkle in his suit or hair out of place, which is always annoying,” McHugh said. “We all looked like our clothes needed to be ironed. We all looked like we needed a shower. Hank looked perfect. Like, perfect.”

Hockey fans also had to be praying for somebody to finally play the role of hero at that point, so they could get some sleep.

Through it all, helping keep everyone awake and entertained were the intermission reports from these five men, led by McHugh, the polished pro from New York who could not be more respected by the sidekicks to his left and right.

It’s not easy to be the one who blends so many different personalities.

“It’s got to feel like herding cats,” Carter said. “You just never know where the conversation’s going to go. But Liam has that ability to magically get a read in the conversation, know when to jump in or know when to let the conversation breathe. That’s a skill that you either have it or you don’t.”

“He’s really good at distributing that ball around, and he’s good at actually causing some debates,” said Rick Tocchet, who left the panel in January to become coach of the Canucks. “But he doesn’t tell you. He does it right on the air. He wants it organically done, which is really good TV.”

“Liam’s got a crazy motor, and that comes with a lot of personal sacrifice,” said Bissonnette, referring to the fact that McHugh commutes weekly to Atlanta from New York, where he and his wife, Maggie, have 10- and 8-year-old boys and a 5-year-old girl.

“He’s just extremely, extremely professional and highly intelligent,” Bissonnette added. “And, oh my god, this guy’s a funny bastard. He’s got good, subtle chirps under his breath. Sometimes I don’t even notice that he got me with them until I watch the clip.”

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McHugh’s knack for triggering conversation was on full display in that Panthers-Canes marathon.

Lundqvist talked about how his pads absorbed so much water and perspiration in playoff overtimes, they’d weigh 50 pounds by the end. Gretzky talked about how he’d change his underwear after periods and how players would eat chocolate or hot dogs and drink soda to get energized. There were no PowerBars back then, he said.

“And it’s all unscripted,” Carter said. “He’ll just spur memories we’ve never shared before.”

“He’s a genius at it,” added Tocchet.

“Brilliant,” said Jones, the now-Flyers president who worked in-studio with McHugh at NBC and TNT. “He does such a good job of being not necessarily the star of the show — although he might be — but having the ability to blend everyone and get their personalities involved.”

It’s by design that much of what we see and hear comes off the cuff. McHugh and company want this to be a spontaneous, entertaining show, to feel like it’s a bunch of buddies sitting around talking about a game. McHugh will often listen to the banter in the viewing room, mining for topics to throw to the panel. Other times, he’ll float something just to get a reaction or jog memories so an analyst will share something we haven’t heard before.

In Game 2 of Panthers-Hurricanes, that’s how McHugh got guest analyst Jon Cooper, the Lightning coach, to tell a story from the fourth intermission of the Lightning’s five-overtime win over Columbus in 2020, about how he held a meeting in the trainer’s room because there were so many players getting IV fluids.

Coach Cooper in the building talking marathon overtime games 👀

— NHLonTNT (@NHL_On_TNT) May 20, 2023

Two nights earlier, mercifully, 13 seconds before McHugh and the panel would have teed up a fifth overtime, a Carolina attempted exit hit an official’s skate and went right to Matthew Tkachuk for the winner.

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The TNT crew doesn’t root, but this time let’s just say that there was a roar and some elation.

“And then I look up and the first block has gone 17 minutes even though it was only supposed to go seven,” McHugh said. “These guys are such pros. Everybody’s exhausted, yet the minute we get going, everyone’s got a thought and an opinion and a story.”

At the center of it all: the 45-year-old McHugh, who’s become one of the most popular studio hosts in the sport’s history about a decade after showing up on the air on Versus talking hockey, a baby-faced guy who seemed to have come out of nowhere.

To McHugh, who in college was scared to death of public speaking, the job has become fun, wrangling the personalities so their talents can shine through.

“I want to do a show that I think would entertain me,” he said. “But you, obviously, want to respect the viewer, especially in the playoffs, and there are moments where you want to get out of the way, too. I’ve had just great teammates here, too, and the guys all want to be collaborative.

“It’s not about themselves, which I have to say is so quintessentially hockey.”

But where did McHugh come from?

He grew up in Williston Park on Long Island. His dad, Frank, 84, is from Brooklyn and was an English teacher and track coach at Elmont High, about eight furlongs from Belmont Park. His mom, Jackie, 77, is from Queens and was a library clerk in town.

So let’s just say McHugh is well-read.

He was also a solid athlete — but not a hockey player.

“I remember saying, ‘I’d love to play hockey,'” McHugh said. “My dad’s like, ‘Yeah, go ahead. Play in the street.’ I’m like, ‘Well, I kind of need skates.’ And he said, ‘That’s for rich kids. Here’s a basketball and soccer ball.'”

McHugh would end up playing hoops and soccer through high school, and he went on to play soccer at the University of Buffalo, which made him a natural to land his current second job, hosting MLS Season Pass on Apple TV. It’s a bear of a five-hour live show where they whip around from game to game on Saturday nights.

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McHugh said he wasn’t a great soccer player, and with his dad being an English teacher, “I knew I wanted to do something in writing.” He started at his school paper at Buffalo, and his first job after graduation was at Newsday as a sportswriter. He added a side gig at ESPN Magazine, beginning as a researcher.

By day, he worked at ESPN Magazine. By night, he covered high school sports for Newsday.

“I was grinding away and really trying to make it, but I knew in the back of my mind, I always wanted to give broadcasting a chance,” McHugh said.

So he applied to the broadcaster factory that is Newhouse School at Syracuse University.

“My colleagues at ESPN Magazine encouraged me, which I would say, in part, is because maybe they saw something in me, but I think also in part because they did not see something in the writing I was doing,” McHugh said. “They were like, ‘Yeah, this might be a really good idea for you to change paths.’ So I did.”

McHugh got into Syracuse and found a way to pay for his own Master’s program.

“My parents paid for my education at Buffalo. I paid for the Syracuse one,” McHugh said. “So I took the Syracuse one a little bit more seriously, because I was like, ‘I’m going to be paying this off forever.'”

The ironic thing?

McHugh took a public speaking course years earlier at Buffalo and hated it so much he dropped it.

“I was very self-conscious,” he said. “Every word felt like it had to be perfect, which is a bad way to do any kind of public speaking. I was really uncomfortable with it. But I got some decent advice from people at ESPN. They’re like, ‘You’re going to be bad. It doesn’t mean you’ll be bad forever. You just have to accept that it’s not going to be natural.'”

McHugh went to school with plenty of people who were so good, they went national right away. He used the minor-league circuit to get his reps.

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He started in Terre Haute, Ind., and ultimately made a big jump to Oklahoma City. From there, he bounced around college sports markets before getting his first big break at Versus. In 2011, Versus was relaunched as NBC Sports Network.

McHugh didn’t do hockey at first for Versus. He cohosted an all-sports show in 2010 called the Daily Line that led into the network’s playoff hockey coverage. The last 20 minutes of those shows, McHugh would switch gears and talk hockey with guests, an appetizer before the pregame show.

When the Daily Line was canceled, McHugh started hosting NHL Overtime and Hockey Central until transitioning in 2011 to NBC.

“I was still under contract,” McHugh said. “So I think that’s mainly how I got my opportunity. They were like, ‘Hey, we’re paying this guy. We should definitely have him work for us and do something.’ So they decided they wanted to do a longer NHL show.'”

McHugh and his wife, who also got her start in TV, had just signed a lease in Manhattan. If he failed, he wasn’t going to be able to pay for their apartment.

“So I crammed. I studied like hell,” McHugh said. “It was basically like cramming for a final every single night.”

McHugh hosted NHL Live, NBC Sports Network’s pregame and postgame show, with analysts Jones and Mike Milbury. The chemistry quickly grew, with Milbury offering combative views and Jones playing the straight man. McHugh found a way to tee them up naturally and show hockey viewers that he was one polished broadcaster.

“I think Milbury and Jonesy both saw something in me as a host, even though I wasn’t a hockey guy,” McHugh said. “I didn’t challenge them that much on hockey, early on. I challenged them on plenty of other things and odd opinions and the way they phrased things. And I think they enjoyed the pushback. And they helped me with hockey. I will always be indebted to both those guys.”

Over 11 years at NBC, McHugh became a familiar face, hosting NHL coverage through the 2021 Final, the Tour de France in 2011 and 2012, five Olympics (2012, 2014, 2016, 2018 and 2020), Notre Dame football from 2012 to 2018, weekday Premier League coverage and NFL Thursday Night Football in 2017, as well as cohosting the 2018 Super Bowl and Football Night in America from 2018 to 2020.

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McHugh was the onsite host while Mike Tirico was the studio host, which was great until COVID-19 hit and they’d throw to him in empty stadiums.

“Mike would be like, ‘What’s going on there, Liam?'” McHugh said, laughing. “I’d look around and be like, ‘Well … not much.'”

In 2022, when NBC lost its NHL rights to TNT and ESPN, it was a no-brainer for McHugh to leave — mostly because there was no opportunity to stay.

“They were absolutely letting me go,” McHugh said. “They had told me that they had moved onto other people for football and that now they didn’t have hockey. So that was it.”

He didn’t hear from ESPN, which already had hockey lovers in its broadcasting stable in Steve Levy, John Buccigross and Linda Cohn.

But TNT came calling and was looking for a host who could fill Ernie Johnson’s Inside the NBA role for an NHL-themed studio show.

Several of McHugh’s old colleagues were getting jobs there, too, including Carter, the former NHL winger who had meshed well with McHugh for years on NBC.

McHugh flew to Atlanta and did a quick audition. Darren Pang was there. In another round of auditions, the network brought in potential analysts, including Bissonnette.

McHugh only knew Bissonnette’s persona from Spittin’ Chiclets.

“Five minutes into it, I was like, ‘I hope this happens,'” McHugh said. “Biz just got it. And it was great because we actually screwed something up during what would’ve been an audition, and he just owned it. He was like, ‘Are we done? Do I just get to go home because I screwed that all up?’ But we kept going and I go, ‘So, what are you doing the rest of the summer?’ He goes, ‘Guess nothing now.’

“We figured that may be it for both of us. Instead, they came back in and said, ‘We loved that. We loved that you two just went with it, that you went off script when things weren’t going right.’ I’m telling you, it was at that very moment that I knew Biz was someone I definitely wanted to work with and TNT was the place I wanted to work.”

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McHugh loved the vibe of the show he envisioned — if he could land the job.

“It was the first time I’ve ever done a job interview in my life where I wasn’t trying to sell myself, to fit my personality,” McHugh said. “I remember saying, ‘I think what you’re looking for is what I want to be doing — what I wanted to be doing the entire time.'”

McHugh could have felt pressure at this point, going to TNT. Let’s face it: Inside the NBA is wildly popular, with Shaquille O’Neal and Charles Barkley bookending a desk that includes Kenny Smith and has the perfect host in Johnson.

But he didn’t.

“I felt, frankly, happy just about the opportunity that we could do something in that mold,” he said. “Like, we’re doing our own unique show, so I don’t look at their show as a template. I look at it as a loose model for how free a show could be. But I don’t look at individual segments and say, ‘Oh, we should try that,’ because so much of what happens on that show is organic, and you can’t do it unless there’s chemistry.

And what does TNT think of all this? “They’ll come back and give us feedback on things, but they don’t overcoach,” McHugh said. “They just let us know what worked, let us know that, ‘Hey, you swung for the fences on that one. That was good.’ But sometimes when you swing for the fences, you swing and miss.”

The boys absolutely CRUSHED the TNT Studio Relay 🏁 @liam_mchugh | @armdog | @AnsonCarterLA | @BizNasty2point0

— NHLonTNT (@NHL_On_TNT) April 20, 2023

Same thing with hosting. McHugh has tremendous respect for the Ernie Johnsons and Curt Menefees, but he doesn’t want to emulate anybody because he feels that would be obvious to the viewer and not true to himself.

McHugh met Johnson right when he got to TNT. The NHL folks were having dinner with the baseball group, and Johnson came by, sat with McHugh for 10 minutes and, McHugh said, “It reaffirmed my belief that this was a good place for me.”

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“Ernie told me, ‘You’re at the right place. This is what you want to do, and this is the place to do it.'”

Then within the first two weeks of the show, Bissonnette dropped a swear word on the air. He didn’t know he wasn’t allowed to.

“He was like, ‘Is that a problem?'” McHugh said, laughing.

McHugh came back from the next break and welcomed back “Rick Tocchet, Anson Carter and Roy Kent.”

“I got a text immediately and was like, ‘Uh-oh. Someone didn’t like the reference,'” McHugh said. “But it was Ernie saying, ‘That was a great reference. I was laughing right away.’ He’s like, ‘What a great way to address the fact the guy cursed on air.’

“Again, what a place to work.”

And the team enjoys its time together away from the studio, too.

Between Games 3 and 4 of the Eastern Conference final, McHugh, Lundqvist, Bissonnette and Carter drove Porsches around a test track in Atlanta.

Carter recognized immediately that the minivan-driving McHugh wasn’t too comfortable with his Porche 911 upgrade.

“Liam was like the granddad,” Carter said. “I blew by him on the track. I was like, ‘Just use your turn signal, Liam. Hit the gas. Geez.’ But as I’m yelling at Liam, Hank blew by me. I realized right then that Hank’s done this before.

“But we are a team. That’s exactly how we operate. We have fun. We like to hang out. We do goofy things, but we’re a team. And I think it shows on the air.

“I’m telling you, that’s because Liam is our captain.”

Tocchet said it was actually a tough decision to leave TNT to return to coaching because of how much he loved being a part of the show.

“I was green at the beginning. We all were, except for Ace,” Tocchet said. “Liam, coming over from NBC, had to really take that leadership role.

“And a lot of those ideas you see, he’s the one spearheading, whether it’s a good demo or bit or discussion. So he took a big role in that. … He had to take that baton and go, ‘Hey, boys, you’ve got to follow me.’ Because if he didn’t, I think we’d be a fish out of water.”

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McHugh doesn’t want to take credit for the success of the show, though.

It’s total teamwork, he said, and not just the on-air folks.

“One of the unique things about this place is that ideas can come from anyone,” McHugh said. “Producers, hosts, analysts, tape editors, graphics producers, directors — it doesn’t matter. Ideas pinball around the room, and the best ones get to play.”

"Great players… and Biz" Connor Bedard just BURIED @biznasty2point0 on the TNT set 😱💀

— B/R Open Ice (@BR_OpenIce) June 5, 2023

McHugh may be proudest of the growth Bissonnette has shown in two years. He plays into the self-deprecation and chirps and still likes being silly, but hand him a whiteboard and he shows viewers how much he knows about hockey.

“I genuinely care about the game and care about other people’s opinions,” Bissonnette said. “But it’s Liam who fuels the broadcast. I couldn’t imagine having to not only drive the bus, read the prompter, and he’s got all these other voices going on in his ear, and especially mine. You got me and the other guys making cat noises in his ear.”

Gretzky is Gretzky and added instant credibility.

“I thought there was a chance that he’d come in and say like, ‘What am I doing with these clowns?'” McHugh said. “But I think it’s such a strong relationship with Tocch and a belief in him that he wanted to give us a go. And immediately when he came in, and he started ripping the other guys on the set, and then when the other guys started chirping him and he took it, it changed the dynamic of the show.”

Lundqvist adds a dignified, calm presence, not to mention a future Hall of Famer to analyze goaltenders.

“He’s such a great contrast,” McHugh said. “When you have Biz at one end of the desk and you have him at the other, everything he says is measured and it’s calm. I love that Biz is running 100 miles an hour, and then it gets to Hank, and he’s like, ‘OK, settle down. Let me just explain this to everyone nice and clearly.’

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“But he’s also willing to have fun, and he is loose. And on occasion in his very, very nice and pleasant Swedish way, he will absolutely chirp us with the rare dagger.”

And then there’s Carter, “the straight man,” as McHugh called him. They have worked together longer than everyone else.

“I can go to Anson with anything,” McHugh said. “And I think for me and for him, there was just the comfort of having worked together. So there was at least that cadence of, I mean, I just know when he’s finishing a thought. He knows when I’m dipping during video, and he can jump in.

“And at the very beginning, there was the idea of, ‘Everyone’s being a little too polite to each other,’ and we didn’t have to worry about that. If we disagreed with something, we could disagree. We could even argue about it. And people look at us, like, ‘Oh no. We’ll be fine.'”

Carter said there’s nobody better to work with.

“Tocch and Biz were just amazed by his ideas, his mind, how he never messes up,” Carter said. “He’s able to pivot. He’s able to be funny. He’s able to be serious. He could bring whatever is necessary to the table.

“And he’s navigating all this with a producer in his ear. He has sponsorship reads, sponsorship elements. For us, the only thing we have to worry about is what we’re going to talk about as it pertains to hockey. But he has to juggle so many different elements … I mean, to be able to keep all that stuff straight is a skill.

“To me, he’s the best in the business.”

Not bad for a baby-faced soccer guy who was scared of public speaking.

(Photos courtesy of WBD Sports unless noted)