Quinn Hughes was back at Rogers Arena on Sunday night for the first time since the Vancouver Canucks traded him, and the building had decided well in advance how the evening was going to go.
“Quinn, you suck” started on his opening shift. “Quitter” followed. Then came the one that traveled furthest.
“He’s not signing.”
That third chant wasn’t really aimed at him. Hughes has yet to agree an extension with the Minnesota Wild, who couldn’t even open talks until July 1, and the crowd had worked out that the most wounding thing available was to tell Minnesota what Vancouver already knew.
By the end of it he had absorbed about 33 minutes of near-constant abuse. He also got dumped to the ice on his first shift by Drew O’Connor and Elias Pettersson, which brought the house down, and again later by Max Sasson while the “he’s not signing” chant was in full voice.
Quinn Hughes’ career totals with the Canucks:
| Category | Total |
|---|---|
| Points | 432 |
| Assists | 371 |
| Power-play points | 190 |
| Multi-point games | 110 |
Why was Quinn Hughes traded to the Wild?
Vancouver were starting a rebuild with a captain whose contract ran out in the summer of 2027, and nobody around the league believed he intended to sign another one there. Keeping him would have meant losing him for nothing eighteen months later. The Canucks took at least six offers before settling on Minnesota’s package of Marco Rossi, Liam Ohgren, Zeev Buium and a 2026 first-round pick.
He never actually asked out. That’s part of why the reception, savage as it was, lacked the particular venom Ottawa saved for Brady Tkachuk last week. In Hughes’s defense, didn’t leave a team on the rise or walk out on a long-term contract. He declined to rejoin a burning pile of rubble that he had a front-row seat for as captain.
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The club played an in-game tribute video anyway. He leaves as the highest-scoring defenseman in Canucks history, and the footage showed the finest defensive hockey the franchise has produced alongside a conspicuous absence of team achievement.
Hughes answered in the second period, scoring on the power play with 7:05 left from Joel Eriksson Ek and Maxim Shabanov. Minnesota won 4-2.
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