Will Quinn Hughes play for USA? Vancouver Canucks captain hearing mixed messages
“Quinn Hughes is coming.”
Those were the words from Team USA head coach Mike Sullivan on Tuesday, sending shockwaves through everyone following the 4 Nations Face-Off in Boston.
Except no he isn’t.
At least not yet.
Roster rules at this tournament are murky, to say the least. The NHL seems to be making up rules as it goes along, so it’s unclear whether the Vancouver Canucks captain will be allowed to play in Thursday’s championship game against Canada.
But given Sullivan’s definitive statement, the last place anyone expected to see Hughes on Tuesday was at Rogers Arena in Vancouver.
But there he was, skating with his Canucks teammates as his 4 Nations fate lies in limbo.
Hughes in action. pic.twitter.com/KsiQ0ln35e
— Canucks Insider (@CanucksInsider) February 18, 2025
“I really want to [play]. Obviously been really hard to watch. I want to play but I guess from what I can understand the rules are the rules… They still have their six D,” Hughes told reporters.
But what are the rules exactly?
Charlie McAvoy is injured but Team USA still has six healthy defencemen. Will one of them fall mysteriously ill? The Americans also have a bunch of banged-up forwards. Would they be allowed to call up Hughes and play with seven defencemen?
It’s clear that Team USA GM Bill Guerin hasn’t given up on finding a way to get Hughes to Boston, saying today he’s “still working through it.”
Team USA head coach Mike Sullivan says Quinn Hughes not on his way here at the moment but that GM Bill Guerin is still working through it. So still TBD.
— Pierre LeBrun (@PierreVLeBrun) February 19, 2025
Working through what, exactly? Are they working at changing the rules, which appear to be unwritten?
The NHL obviously goofed when putting together the roster rules for this tournament, because Hughes deserves to play. Why not include an injured reserve spot or just a deeper roster to account for injuries?
The Canucks defenceman pulled out of the tournament at the last minute, after missing four straight games, reportedly due to an oblique injury. It was obviously a really tough decision for him.
“Not to be dramatic but it was extremely hard… it’s been something that I’ve been looking forward to for a long time,” Hughes said of last week’s difficult decision to pull out of the tournament.
“What it came down to [was] I just wasn’t healthy enough, where I wasn’t sure that I could get worse. And I felt like I couldn’t be crawling back to Vancouver at the end of that tournament, where now I’m missing more Canucks games.”
Hughes said after Tuesday’s practice in Vancouver that he feels “really good” now and expects to play Saturday’s Canucks game in Las Vegas. But he really wants to play in the 4 Nations Face-Off, too.
“[I’m] close with a lot of those USA guys and proud of how they’ve been playing. The six D that have been there, of course, I want to play, but they’ve gotten us to the point where we’re in a championship game now and those guys also deserve to play. In saying that, it’s obviously been hard for me.
“I’m a competitor and feel like I want to play and need to be there.”