Pressure rising in Minnesota with former Canucks captain Quinn Hughes
Vancouver Canucks can relate to the pain.
The initial, gut-wrenching pain of seeing Quinn Hughes, the franchise’s all-time best defenceman, has dissipated over the last eight months. That’s largely because the Canucks have embraced the rebuild under a completely new management team.
Seeing Zeev Buium, Marco Rossi, and Liam Ohgren show flashes in Canucks colours also helped, while adding draft-day steal Adam Novotny added to the good vibes.
But how will Canucks fans feel if their former captain quits on his new team?
Empathetic? Elated? Vindicated?
All of those emotions would be justified.
Hughes excelled during his first season with the Minnesota Wild, helping them defeat the Dallas Stars in the postseason before bowing out to the Colorado Avalanche in Round 2.
After their postseason defeat, Wild owner Craig Leopold confidently proclaimed that Hughes wasn’t going anywhere.
“We are going to re-sign him,” Leopold told Minnesota Public Radio back on June 24. “The question will be for how long. We would like to go as long as we could. He will probably want it to be a little shorter, shorter being maybe three years. We hopefully will end up at five.”
One month later, The Athletic’s Michael Russo reported that the Wild were on the verge of meeting with Hughes to discuss a new contract.
Believe Bill Guerin will be meeting with Quinn Hughes and his camp in Michigan today/this week. As we've long reported, Wild want to go 5-8 years (7-year max term after Sept. 16 in new CBA). 3-year extension still makes most sense for Quinn so he can align with Jack's deal in NJ
— Michael Russo (@RussoHockey) July 28, 2026
Things were seemingly trending in a positive direction.
So what’s the hold-up?
“It has surprised me a little bit about how long this has taken with Hughes,” Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman said recently on the 32 Thoughts podcast.
Back in the earlier portion of August, Friedman predicted that Hughes would sign a three-year deal with Minnesota worth $18 million per season.
However, the closer we get to the start of the regular season, the more fans in Minnesota may start to sweat.
“I’ll be concerned if it’s not done at the start of the season,” Friedman said. “I’ll be surprised based on what I predicted.”
“I don’t think there have been a lot of talks recently between Hughes and the Wild. I don’t get that sense.”
Friedman also alluded to the fact that Hughes and Colorado Avalanche defenceman Cale Makar could both be playing a game of contract chicken.
Both defencemen are in the final years of their respective contracts. And, with the cap rising, coupled with recently bloated contracts for Bowen Byram, Macklin Celebrini and Leo Carlsson, it’s conceivable that Makar and Hughes could command deals pushing $20 million per season.
However, Makar is a lifelong member of the Avalanche. He’s won a Conn Smythe Trophy with the franchise and gets to play alongside NHL superstar Nathan MacKinnon. It’s hard to envision him going anywhere.
That sentiment isn’t the case with Hughes, who obviously has the lure of his brothers in New Jersey.
“Would it be fun to play with those guys at some point? Of course,” Hughes said back in September when asked about Jack’s candid comment about the brothers playing together. “I think if you guys have brothers, you guys would say the same thing. But we do have contracts.”
The lure of unrestricted free agency is now less than a year away. With the puck dropping on the regular season in late September,Ā the pressure will ratchet up on Wild GM Bill Guerin to get a deal done.
Otherwise, Wild fans might join Canucks faithful in uttering the phrase “Quit Hughes.”