Boeser had to put his phone away after Vancouver Canucks traded Hughes to Minnesota
Brock Boeser has experienced a significant amount of roster turnover during his time with the Vancouver Canucks.
However, losing the best player in franchise history hits different.
You couldn’t blame Boeser for being emotional after the Canucks traded his longtime teammate away to the Minnesota Wild last week.
However, it got to the point for Boeser that he had to put his phone away following the trade, after acquaintances in his home state started messaging him.
“When I was getting texts from people in Minnesota after the trade, I had to put my phone on ‘do not disturb’ and put it away for a while,” Boeser told The Athletic.
He also didn’t want to entertain any conversation about Hughes’ first game in Minnesota.
“When people were texting me about his first game, I’m like, ‘Too early. Too early.'”
Boeser and Hughes spent parts of eight seasons together in Vancouver, after the best defenceman in Canucks history joined the club out of college at the tail end of the 2018-19 season.
“I was feeling so many different emotions, because he’s one of my best buddies on the team and such an important piece,” Boeser told The Athletic.
“I was sad. I was mad. I was happy for him. It was just a ton of emotions.”
Boeser revealed that news of the trade broke while the players were on the team bus in Newark, New Jersey. However, it was reported that Hughes was not there, as he left to be with his brothers, Jack and Luke, after the team landed out east.
Later that night, following the trade, Hughes went out to dinner with Boeser, Conor Garland, Filip Hronek, and Tyler Myers.
“We’re happy for him, but then again… it was hard to just take it all in and really fully comprehend that he wasn’t going to be with us the next day,” Boeser said.
Boeser and Hughes were two of the longest-tenured members of the Canucks prior to his trade, alongside Elias Pettersson and Thatcher Demko.
During Hughes’ debut, he joined Boeser and Pettersson on the ice for an overtime shift that invigorated the imagination of the fanbase.
“The future is here,” Canucks play-by-play announcer John Shorthouse said on the Sportsnet broadcast at the time.
Now, nearly six years later, Hughes is gone, and the Canucks are at the bottom of the NHL standings. They have two postseason berths to show for it, with one coming during the 2020 bubble playoffs in Edmonton.