The Quinn Hughes fallout continues as we head toward the NHL trade freeze ahead of the holiday season. On Sunday, the Minnesota Wild showed off their newest toy as Quinn Hughes took to the lineup against the Boston Bruins. He recorded a goal in his first game in a Wild uniform and appeared to be having fun playing hockey again.
NHL Rumors: Minnesota Wild Went All In with Quinn Hughes. Can They Keep Him?
While Wild GM Bill Guerin went “All-In” to get the eldest Hughes brother, the real work now begins. Remember, Hughes has a year and a half left on his current deal at $7.85 million a season. He isn’t eligible to sign an extension until July 1, 2026, but the way he was talking after the game on Sunday, he is open to anything.
“Extremely open-minded,” Hughes told the Minnesota media on Sunday post-game when asked if he was about extending with the Wild. “They’ve got an amazing core. Obviously I’ve only been here four hours, but getting to know some of the guys and how energetic and positive guys are. And then Minnesota being so close to Michigan (his home state), and just the State of Hockey and the passion here. Seeing how the fans reacted to me as well in warmups.”
But what may have put things over the edge was the rest of his quote when he complimented Minnesota’s General Manager for stepping up and going after him.
“And then obviously I got a lot of time for Billy for ‘sacking up’ and making the deal like he did. And just how he valued me,” Hughes continued. “There are other teams that probably could’ve thrown in certain packages like that too, but at the end of the day, they didn’t want to do that or they didn’t want to trade two or three assets from their team like Billy did. So I’ll remember that. And that means a lot to me that Billy did that.”
NHL Trade: Vancouver Canucks Trade Quinn Hughes to Minnesota
How players are handled in this situation goes a long way toward whether players stay or not. Vancouver Canucks President of Hockey Operations Jim Rutherford treated Quinn Hughes like he had trade protection even though he didn’t. Hughes had the Ryan O’Reilly unofficial-official verbal trade protection. Not only was the player informed throughout the process, but his agent, Pat Brisson, was as well.
Brisson, who couldn’t guarantee teams anything before the trade, will keep an open mind along with his player after this trade when it comes to his contract extension, which hasn’t been discussed yet, as he told Michael Russo of The Athletic.
“We haven’t crossed that at all,” Brisson said. “Just like the conversations I’ve had in the recent weeks about the potential extensions and not promising anything, we haven’t even looked at or thought about the concept going forward.
The good thing about Quinn, he’s still young. He’s not a 29- or 30-year-old asset. I’m not saying that it’s old, but by virtue of extension, sometimes it’s usually your last deal, right? So with him, I don’t know — everything’s open. We’re really, really going into this experience with an open mind, and we’ll see how it goes.”
NHL Rumors: Some Fallout After the Quinn Hughes Trade to the Wild
It will be interesting to see where things go for the second-best defenseman in the league. But Bill Guerin isn’t afraid to swing for the fences when it comes to handing out contracts. Just look at what he did with Kirill Kaprizov and that deal. Again, Cale Makar is due for an extension. Those two players will be one-two in terms of defenseman getting paid.
But will Quinn Hughes get as much as we all think? He wants to win. Sometimes taking less in a good situation is better than getting the bag. The countdown is on for the Wild and Hughes to get a deal done.
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