The Minnesota Wild headlines this season off the ice are all going to be about Quinn Hughes.
Can the Wild get Hughes to sign a contract extension? Will the Wild trade Hughes instead?
To be fair, those are huge questions. They can have a massive impact on the entire NHL Western Conference picture. Hughes is that good and deserves to be talked about as such.
It just means that other potential moves and trade considerations can fly under the radar.
That’s what is happening right now with Danila Yurov, who is an exciting potential trade chip in his own right.
Danila Yurov Trade Update
Yurov was named in the latest trade board put together by The Athletic’s Chris Johnston.
His placement there is a bit surprising in the context of the list, which is mostly veterans who are either looking for new homes or could benefit from a change of scenery.
Yurov is just 22 and still has a bright future. He’s not the type of player a team trades away all that often.
“The Wild have dangled Yurov as part of packages aimed at landing bigger fish,” Johnston writes. “He’s in his sophomore NHL season and has demonstrated deft stickhandling skills and strong instincts while lining up as a third-line center in Minnesota. Yurov is a shifty player with upside who is cost-controlled, with an entry-level contract covering this season and next. It’s an attractive set of attributes.”
There would be a wide range of NHL teams interested in a player like Yurov, because he’d come cheap, have a long-term future and is already making NHL contributions. So the list of suitors would likely be long if Yurov truly became available.
But the reality is the Wild aren’t trying to trade him 1-for-1 or anything like that, and the implications here go back to Hughes, because of course they do.
Quinn Hughes Impact
The Wild seem to have two different ways they could go here.
One is to trade Hughes and shift their contention timeline just a bit — getting back talent and maybe youth and trying to build a strong long-term future.
The other is to try to get even more current talent around Hughes, maybe at the expense of future assets. That’s where Yurov would come in. If he could be a key part of a trade that brings back another top-notch NHL player, that would be impactful — both for the Wild trying to win this season but also to potentially convince Hughes to sign an extension to stay with whoever his new, high-powered teammate happened to be.
It’s all connected in Minnesota, and there are still multiple paths this road can take.
Wild’s Danila Yurov Trade Update Slips Under Quinn Hughes Radar