How close did the Canucks come to trading Hughes to Detroit?
It only took one phone call from Bill Guerin.
The Vancouver Canucks accepted the first offer from the Minnesota Wild before pulling the trigger on one of the biggest trades in Canucks history, Guerin has said.
It does make you wonder, who else was seriously in the running?
Well, apparently, one of those teams was the Detroit Red Wings.
That much was apparent around the time of the trade. Heck, at one point, the Wings were the odds-on favourites to acquire Hughes from the Canucks. Based on the fact that he has a family home in Michigan, coupled with the fact that he played NCAA hockey there, a trade to Detroit would have made sense.
However, a recent report from one of the most legendary sports media figures in Detroit suggests that the Red Wings were more than interested in Hughes.
Keith Gave, the journalist who helped Sergei Fedorov and the Russian Five make it to Detroit, dropped a bombshell report on Thursday. He claimed that, according to his sources, the Canucks and Red Wings had actually agreed on a trade for Hughes.
But, he reports that it fell apart due to Hughes declining to agree upon a long-term extension in Motown.
You are misinformed, like many others.
Steve Yzerman and Vancouver had agreed to a trade for Quinn Hughes. It was a done deal ON THE CONDITION that Hughes agreed to a long-term deal with Detroit. Yzerman and Hughes spoke directly. Hughes declined. Wings sure tried. https://t.co/coFipeE6Fd— Keith Gave (@KeithGave) April 15, 2026
Of course, if this conversation did happen, it’s completely against NHL rules.
Any contract negotiations that exist before the one-year mark of a player’s contract would be considered tampering by NHL standards.
That’s pertinent in the case of Hughes, who cannot negotiate or sign a contract extension until July 1.
With Minnesota, there was clearly a risk in making the trade, knowing that Hughes could very well leave in the summer of 2027. However, they do get two cracks at winning the first Stanley Cup in franchise history with one of the best defencemen in the NHL on their roster.
Is that a risk the Red Wings should have taken?
Based on how their season played out, the answer is probably yes.
According to ESPN’s Greg Wyshynski, a comparable package for the Wings to land Hughes would have been defenceman Simon Edvinsson, prospect Michael Brandsegg-Nygard, either Marco Kasper or Nate Danielson, and a first-round pick.
Even then, it’s debatable that it would have beaten the Wild’s accepted offer of Zeev Buium, Marco Rossi, Liam Öhgren, and a first-round pick.
So, if Gave’s report is true, perhaps Detroit’s package was even better than what the Wild put forward.
While that incites some fascinating revisionist history in Vancouver, it may incite nothing but pain for Red Wings fans.
After leading their division in January, Detroit crumbled down the stretch, missing the postseason for an NHL-high 10th-straight season. Not only that, but they also traded their first-round pick in 2026 to the St. Louis Blues at the deadline in exchange for Justin Faulk.
Whoops.