Wow. The Vancouver Canucks have traded their 26-year-old captain, Quinn Hughes, to the Minnesota Wild, SportsNet’s Eliotte Friedman reported late Friday night.
Friedman also reported the Canucks return for shipping off the perennial point-per-game defender is Marco Rossi, Zeev Buium, Liam Ohgren, and a first-round pick.
Details are still emerging as neither team has publicly announced the deal, but an absolute blockbuster shakeup for the entire Western Conference.
New Jersey Devils Emerged As Favorites To Land Hughes
Vancouver’s decision to send away Quinn Hughes wasn’t surprising. The team they traded with, however, certainly was.
A week’s worth of reports made the Hughes deal feel imminent, but in it all, one team emerged as the runaway favorite, the New Jersey Devils.
“The idea of Quinn and Jack creating magic together is appealing, and that would certainly happen at times—particularly on the power play—but head coach Sheldon Keefe might actually layer their shifts so that the Devils can have one game-breaker on the ice for 40-45 minutes out of 60,” wrote Bleacher Reports’ Adam Herman in a trade-pitch article posted on Wednesday.
The idea of adding a third Hughes brother to the mix was just too fun to pass up.
The trade rumors were then fueled by insider Eliotte Friedman publishing a report that said that the two parties had “touched base” on the idea of potentially sending Quinn to New Jersey.
Some analysts believed the deal was “inevitable,” but at the end of the day, the Hughes deal was one Vancouver could not afford to take a discount on.
“Vancouver has to get this right,” Friedman wrote in an article published before the deal was made. “I’ve heard the ask is very high, as it should be. One exec told me it is ‘outrageous.’ I replied, ‘Probably not outrageous enough.’ He laughed.”
Here’s What The Minnesota Wild Gave Up
The Canucks got the one thing they needed the most: a center.
Marco Rossi’s last game action came on November 11th when a lower-body injury landed him on the injured reserve. Now one month removed, the former first-round pick is ready to make his return to the ice and will do so in a new uniform.
Rossi played in 82 games in each of the prior two seasons, scoring 20+ goals both years. At 24 years old, Rossi is a promising young piece to add to Vancouver’s offense.
Next is 20-year-old defenseman Zeev Buium. Buium is the Hughes replacement, simple as that. The 2024 first-round draft pick has appeared in all 31 games this season as a rookie. He has the sixth most points of any player on the Wild, and the second most of any defenseman, with 15.
The pot sweetener is 21-year-old Swede, Liam Ohgren.
Ohgren is also a former first-round pick and has seen scattered ice time since his selection in 2022. He has yet to find his footing in the NHL, but at 21 years old, the talented prospect is a good pick-up for a struggling Vancouver farm.
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