Minnesota radio host grills Wild GM over Quinn Hughes dilemma
And people say the Vancouver media is tough.
Minnesota Wild general manager Bill Guerin is in a tough predicament. Quinn Hughes has one year left on his contract, and he needs to re-sign him. But will he?
As ex-Vancouver Canucks president Jim Rutherford so subtly brought up last April, he wants to play with his brothers. Drama followed Hughes throughout the remaining months of his Vancouver tenure. Now, the heat is cranked up on Guerin.
Speaking of heat, KFAN radio host Dan Barreiro brought plenty of it during an interview with Guerin in Minnesota on Monday. Forget about Hughes re-signing. He’s talking about Guerin resigning.
“Here’s your pledge today,” Barreiro said. “Are you willing to make it?
“You’ll pledge today that if you are unable if you are unable to to get a contract for Quinn Hughes… and you are then forced to trade him, you will resign as president of hockey operations.”
Bill Guerin refuses to pledge that “If [the Wild] are unable to get a contract extension for Quinn Hughes, and you have to trade him”, Guerin will resign as GM.
When Guerin is told “you can’t trade [Quinn],” he then says “I can do whatever I want.”
— Craig Patrick (@TGSCraig) August 31, 2026
Barreiro is apparently a radio legend in Minnesota, making a name for himself with blunt takes and tough questions.
That shined through during his chat with Guerin.
“You’re over a barrel,” he continued. “You have to extend him. You know why? Because you were all in on the original move, basically four [first-round] picks. I know you can get a bushel load from him, but you can’t trade him. That signals defeat.”
Will history repeat itself with ex-Canucks captain Quinn Hughes in Minnesota? (Jerome Miron/Imagn Images)
“Listen, I understand the concern, ” Guerin said. “We want him here. The fans want him here. We do not want to lose him, and our fans do not want to lose him.”
“Unfortunately, I’m one of the only ones that’s on the inside. So, I actually know what’s going on. But I can’t divulge too much information.”
Guerin continued by saying he has visited with Hughes a couple of times this offseason, and that he’s in constant communication with his agent.
But, of course, we heard some similar optimism in Vancouver this time last year.
“I honestly think he’s going to be a Canuck. I think it’s all blown up… There’s a lot of noise, but unnecessary noise,” former Canucks head coach Adam Foote said on the Ray and Dregs podcast last September.
How’d that one turn out?
It’s clear that Hughes holds the cards in this situation.
“We can’t make [Hughes] sign anything,” Guerin told Judd’s Hockey Show. “We’d love to have him for as long as we can get him. If he’s got something different in his mind that he wants to do, then there goes our plan. That’s just the honest truth of it.”