Grading the Quinn Hughes trade: Wild move just one high-end piece to add an elite D
Two Trade Grades columns in one day? And we’re still nearly three months from the trade deadline? What a wild, wild world.
Or should we say … a Wild world. After all, it’s the Minnesota Wild who stole the show on Friday night, swinging one of the biggest deals in recent National Hockey League history by acquiring All-Star defenseman Quinn Hughes from the Vancouver Canucks.
It’s the second blockbuster trade of the calendar year for the Canucks, who kicked off 2025 by sending divisive star center J.T. Miller to the New York Rangers. And with Canucks president Jim Rutherford openly acknowledging Friday that his team is now in a rebuild, it wouldn’t be surprising to see more players leave Vancouver in the coming weeks and months.
But for now, there’s plenty to chew on for both sides in this deal. Let’s start in the State of Hockey …
MINNESOTA WILD
Receive:
D Quinn Hughes, 26 – $7.85-million cap hit through 2027
Well, you knew the Wild weren’t going to sit back after signing Kirill Kaprizov to a record-breaking eight-year, $136-million contract extension back in September. What better way to announce yourself as an aspiring Stanley Cup contender than to poach one of the very best defensemen in the league away from a Western Conference rival?
Quinn Hughes is a transformational player. He completely dictates play every time he steps onto the ice, dominating puck possession at both ends and putting up a boatload of points. He’s a rare defenseman whose short stature doesn’t seem to have any negative impact on him whatsoever. Over parts of eight seasons in Vancouver, Hughes thoroughly established himself as by far the most talented defender in Canucks history and became their first-ever Norris Trophy winner back in 2024. And now, he’s heading to Minnesota, where he’ll join the likes of Jared Spurgeon, Jonas Brodin, and Brock Faber on the blue line under head coach John Hynes.
Now, just months after the Wild completed the Kaprizov deal, the hockey world will wait with bated breath to see whether they’ll be able to retain another elite player. Hughes is under contract through 2027 at a laughably reasonable cap hit; in all likelihood, he’ll command more than twice his current $7.85-million annual cap hit on his next deal. The Wild should have the requisite cap space to keep him, and you can bet GM Bill Guerin will do his damnedest after giving up a small fortune to get him, but in the end, it’ll all come down to what Hughes wants. After all, his brothers Jack and Luke are locked in with the New Jersey Devils for the foreseeable future …
If the Wild can get a Hughes contract done, this whole deal instantly becomes a lot more lopsided. If not, well, kudos to them for giving it a shot, and they’ll still have a chance to flip Quinn next year — maybe to New Jersey — if things start to go south. Guerin has given himself lots of flexibility to explore a wide variety of different avenues, and he deserves all the props he’s going to get for pulling off a trade of this magnitude.
Grade: A
VANCOUVER CANUCKS
Receive:
C Marco Rossi, 24 – $5-million cap hit through 2028
D Zeev Buium, 20 – $966,667 cap hit through 2027
LW Liam Ohgren, 21 – $886,666 cap hit through 2027
2026 first-round pick
It was a bit of a shock to see the Wild part with a piece of Zeev Buium’s caliber to get a player only under contract through 2027, even someone as uniquely talented as Quinn Hughes, but it underscores just how desirable and elusive starpower has become in a 32-team league. The No. 12 overall pick in the 2024 NHL Draft, Buium has already established himself as a regular with the Wild and will likely be asked to play a bigger role in Vancouver to finish his rookie season.
Unfortunately for the Canucks, Buium is the only true high-end piece heading their way, but given their relative lack of leverage amid difficult circumstances, it’s undeniably impressive they managed to get him at all. The rest of the return is fine, but it hardly moves the needle compared to a player of Hughes’s impact. Rossi is a small offensive center who has been on the trade block for years, with few suitors; it speaks volumes that the Wild finally moved him only as a secondary piece in a bigger deal after otherwise struggling to find a new home for him. Rossi, whose $5 million cap hit was key to evening out the finances of the trade, hasn’t played since Nov. 11 while dealing with a lower-body injury but is reportedly close to returning. After using David Kampf and Max Sasson as top-six centers in recent weeks, the Canucks will be overjoyed to get someone — anyone — with tangible experience at the position.
The other two pieces in the deal both fall into similar but separate categories of stereotypical blockbuster trade bait: the late first-rounder and the former first-rounder. Ohgren and the pick are fine assets to round out a return, but they’re unlikely to be the pieces upon which this trade is ultimately judged. For his part, Ohgren has yet to record a point through 18 NHL games with the Wild this season; additionally, Minnesota’s 2026 draft pick is unlikely to be all that high, considering they’re already tied for sixth place in the league standings and, just in case you missed it, they’ve now traded for Quinn Hughes. Assuming the Wild do finish the year as one of the top teams in the NHL, the odds of the Canucks getting a star player out of that draft pick won’t be particularly strong.
Ultimately, the Canucks put themselves in a position where they had to trade Hughes — their captain, their best player, and undeniably the greatest defenseman they’ve ever had. And now, it pretty much all comes down to whether Zeev Buium can eventually step into his shoes. That’s a big ask, but the Canucks didn’t have many other options. Now, it’s just a matter of waiting to see where Kiefer Sherwood will end up.
Grade: C
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