Rutherford admits to thinking over a year that Vancouver Canucks would lose Quinn Hughes
The Vancouver Canucks knew they were going to lose Quinn Hughes.
It became abundantly clear to fans as well after the team plummeted to the bottom of the NHL standings this season.
However, the departure of Hughes was apparently on Jim Rutherford’s radar long before that.
Multiple NHL insiders reported yesterday that the Canucks were aware of Hughes refusing to re-sign with the club for “a while.”
The Canucks have known for a while Hughes wasnât going to extend. Van believed their leverage was highest in Dec-Jan. NJD were given a chance. Other teams in east had a chance. A week ago Guerin engaged and closed the deal.
— Darren Dreger (@DarrenDreger) December 13, 2025
TSN’s Farhan Lalji added some more clarification to the report, saying that Rutherford told reporters that his feeling about Hughes not re-signing with the Canucks extended back to a year and a half ago.
Rutherford clarified that the indication he got 1.5 years ago was more of a feeling than anything else. But it was communicated to them this off-season by Quinnâs camp that it was highly unlikely he would extend here. #Canucks
— Farhan Lalji (@FarhanLaljiTSN) December 13, 2025
Rutherford’s inclination about Hughes’ desire to leave the Canucks takes them back to the start of the 2024-25 season, where reports began to surface about the tension between J.T. Miller and Elias Pettersson.
Less than five months after the start of that training camp, Miller was traded to the New York Rangers for a centre who can’t stay healthy, a first-round pick that was flipped for Marcus Pettersson, and a prospect defenceman who’s currently in the AHL.
If Rutherford’s feelings about Hughes leaving the Canucks were true, it makes some of their moves over the past 12 months look even more questionable.
Why did the Canucks flip the 12th overall pick in the 2025 NHL Draft for Pettersson if they thought Hughes was going to leave?
Why did they fail to get anything in return for Brock Boeser and Pius Suter at the 2025 trade deadline if the greatest player in franchise history was on the verge of leaving?
Why did they take a flyer on a 34-year-old winger in Evander Kane if it was clear that they weren’t going to compete for a Stanley Cup?
Why did they trade talented young goaltender ArtĆ«rs Ć ilovs for pennies on the dollar if they knew that this season was going to be about building for the future?
Although the report that Rutherford felt Hughes was unlikely to re-sign was more of a feeling in 2024, it became clearer before the start of this season that Hughes’ time as a Canuck was coming to an end.
“This offseason, it was communicated to him by Hughes’ camp that it was very unlikely that he was going to sign here long term,” Lalji reported.
General manager Patrik Allvin all but confirmed to reporters on Friday that Hughes’ desire to depart Vancouver has been going on for a while.
“I believe this is something that… you probably go back even a year ago, when this started to come to our attention that this might be the path that Quinn wants to go,” Allvin told the media on Friday.
Some fans might argue that the Canucks did their best to extract value for Hughes, considering that he already had one foot out the door, but that probably lets them off the hook too much for their missteps over the last 12+ months.