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Can Canucks re-sign Hughes? Rutherford says he wants to play with his brothers

Rob Williams
Rob Williams
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Apr 21 2025, 6:48 pm
Can Canucks re-sign Hughes? Rutherford says he wants to play with his brothers
Bob Frid/USA TODAY Sports

Say whatever you want about Jim Rutherford, the man is honest.

Maybe honest to a fault.

The Vancouver Canucks president of hockey operations took questions, alongside general manager Patrik Allvin, at the team’s season-ending press conference at Rogers Arena today.

While Allvin remained cagey as usual, Rutherford was his straight-shooting self.

But even he admitted to speaking a little too honestly when asked about Quinn Hughes’ future in Vancouver.

The question posed to Rutherford referenced the potential for the team to lose Hughes in free agency two years from now. Rutherford didn’t exactly quell those fears.

While the 76-year-old executive indicated the team would be willing to pay to keep their best player, he brought up something more worrying.

What if money isn’t the deciding factor? What if Hughes simply wants to play with his brothers instead?

Because the bad news is that his brothers, Jack and Luke Hughes, both play for the New Jersey Devils. And they are unlikely to be available for quite some time.

“The one thing that we will be sure of is we will have enough cap space to offer him the kind of contract that he deserves. That’s the one thing that we can prepare for. And it may not boil down to money for him,” said Rutherford.

“He’s said before that he wants to play with his brothers. That would be partly out of our control [or] in our control if we brought his brothers here. So there’s many moving parts here.”

Rutherford caught himself later, saying: “We gotta be careful with tampering, so we’ll just leave it at that. I probably crossed the line.”

Bringing Jack and Luke Hughes to Vancouver from New Jersey is a nice thought, but it seems pretty far-fetched. Neither Jack nor Luke Hughes can become unrestricted free agents until 2030.

But Quinn to the Devils? There’s a pretty straightforward path in free agency if he wants to leave, in 2027.

The alarm bells will sound next year if there are delays in getting Hughes under contract. He’s eligible to sign a contract extension on July 1, 2026.

All the more reason why the pressure is on Canucks management to turn things around quickly. Give Hughes a reason to re-sign, because, as Rutherford said, they can’t afford to lose him.

“This franchise cannot afford to lose a guy like Quinn Hughes. We will do everything we can to keep him here, but at the end of the day, it’ll be his decision.”

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