NEW YORK — It is the biggest trade in franchise history, which is what you would expect when the Vancouver Canucks are surrendering Quinn Hughes.
The team acquired the equivalent of four first-round picks, including a potential star in rookie defenceman Zeev Buium, by sending Hughes to the Minnesota Wild and ending the uncertainty and noise clouding the best player the Canucks have ever had.
Canucks president Jim Rutherford said the Friday night blockbuster expedites his last-place team’s “rebuild” and should allow it to turn things around within a couple of seasons.
There is understandable excitement about the acquisition of Buium, 20, top-six centre Marco Rossi, 24, prospect Liam Ohgren, 22, and the Wild’s first-round pick in June’s draft.
Rutherford said that once Minnesota general manager Bill Guerin jumped into the bidding on Hughes a week ago and put together his offer, “nobody else came close to it.”
But amid the adrenaline rush and excitement over such a haul, there is also an undeniable sadness about what the Canucks have permanently lost by trading away their 26-year-old captain, who won the Norris Trophy less than two years ago and is undeniably among the most talented and dynamic players on the planet.
Friday’s trade starkly reinforced the organization’s failure over six years and two managerial regimes to build a lasting contender around a generational defenceman like Hughes, who was a 20-year-old rookie and part of a glittering early-20s core of players, when the Canucks won a pair of series during the pandemic playoffs in the summer of 2020.
“There’s definitely a level of sadness,” Rutherford said in a phone call with a handful of Vancouver reporters. “I really care for this person. I really respect him. That’s the way our business is. But today is not my saddest day; I’ve had a lot of them along the way this season. One, from team performance and injuries we’ve dealt with, but two, worrying for a number of months that we were not going to get good value in return for Quinn. And so I can say today that I feel under the circumstances, we got good value in return. And I’m very excited about these players.”
Rossi, Buium and Ohgren were all first-round picks. Rutherford said he acted over the last two weeks to move Hughes because he believed the Canucks had more leverage to make their best trade now rather than wait until the NHL trade deadline or the end of Vancouver’s season.
He said he was “close to 100 per cent” certain that Hughes, drafted seventh-overall by former Canucks GM Jim Benning in 2018, would not re-sign with Vancouver.
Hughes is eligible for unrestricted free agency after next season, so his team — suddenly Minnesota — will need to know this summer about his long-term intentions.
The oldest of three National Hockey League brothers, with siblings Jack and Luke Hughes playing for the New Jersey Devils, Hughes has been non-committal about plans, telling Sportsnet before this season: “Who knows what we can do and who knows how I’ll be feeling this time next year? But it’s still a year away.”
What the Canucks have done is plummet to the bottom of the overall standings, compromised again by injuries and, until recently, slack defending and an unsurvivable penalty kill.
There has been lots of talk about the “noise” in the market, including questions to Hughes after Thursday’s 3-2 loss at home against the Buffalo Sabres about Canucks coach Adam Foote’s comments this week that the noise could be heard in the dressing room.
It’s debatable whether most of the “noise” was genuine or simply manufactured, but what’s clear is that if the Canucks were 17-11-3, instead of 11-17-3, and on their way to the playoffs and a championship bid, conversations about Hughes and Friday’s trade would not have happened.
Rutherford is correct that it was always unlikely that Hughes, family-centric and from Michigan and points east, would want to stay in Vancouver beyond his current contract. But what the defenceman wants more than anything is the opportunity to win. So when the Canucks made it six steps out of the starting gate in October before face-planting, the chance of a Hughes return evaporated entirely.
In an interview with Sportsnet late Friday, agent Pat Brisson said: “Jim and I had so many conversations, and we were realistic about (re-signing) based on where the Canucks are at. So Quinn is relieved because he’s going to play meaningful hockey on a very good team. It’s been a tough three months for him.
“The Canucks always wanted to do right by Quinn but also do right by themselves. And it seems the Minnesota Wild and Bill Guerin really put a strong package together. I believe the Canucks got more than they could get in June.”
Brisson, who also represents Canucks centre Elias Pettersson, praised Rutherford for how “professional” and “first class” the organization was in handling Hughes’ situation and his subsequent trade. The super-agent spoke with all the teams bidding on his client.
“The one thing I made certain about,” Brisson said, “under no circumstances could we guarantee an extension to anyone.”
So the Wild are all-in with Hughes for this season and next, not knowing if the pile of assets they surrendered Friday will buy them any more time than that.
Rutherford said the three new Canucks should help the team become competitive again soon. He also said he does not plan to shop the Wild’s first-round pick. The Canucks’ own pick looks like it will be top-10, or even top-five, in what is regarded as an extremely strong draft.
“It’s difficult trading a player like Quinn,” Rutherford said. “We love him as a person and as a player, one of the greatest players who ever played for the Canucks. I think we have to respect what he’s done here, and respect the fact that he was getting closer to free agency and he’d have a choice to go where he wanted.
“But what does this mean for the Canucks? I believe that we’ve been in a rebuild here for a little bit. We’ve been able to acquire some good young players, but this move today gives us some really good young players. It may not change our team in the next few months or even this season, but this doesn’t have to be a full-blown rebuild where it’s going to take five or seven years. We keep going the direction we’re going — (and) we’re going to get a really good player in June — and this thing can turn for the Canucks certainly within the next couple of years.”
Rossi, Buium and Ohgren are expected to practise with the Canucks Saturday in New Jersey, where Vancouver opens a five-game road trip Sunday against the Devils. The team has lost six of its last seven games.
