It doesn’t take much to send Canucks fans into a frothing uproar that looks like something the Marquis De Sade would have directed. This is a fanbase that was born on tilt. So a couple idle quotes from a player nowhere near them is enough to light a fuse of hysteria. Enter Jack Hughes, who just happens to be the main cog of the Canucks brother, one Quinn Hughes.
It’s hardly an upset that one brother would like to be on the same team as his two other brothers (even if they’re not named Darryl). Quinn was quick to put his brother’s spoken desires in their place. Though it wasn’t the most passionate put-down of his sibling’s musings, Hughes didn’t utter a “Yeah, I’m taillights in 2027!” edict, either.
That doesn’t mean that the Canucks can breathe all that easy, however. With a rising cap, and a roster that could go either way, they hold exactly no cards when it comes to keeping Quinn Hughes around for the rest of his career. All they really hold is a handful of themselves.
If we were to Occam’s Razor this, Hughes and his agent are probably just merely waiting for Cale Makar to sign his extension with the Avs next summer, and then waltz into the Canucks front office and say, “I’ll have that, please.” While Hughes may not have revolutionized the position in the way that Makar is, he really is no worse than a half-rung below Makar at worst, in terms of importance and ability. He might even be more central to the Canucks than Makar is to the Avs, because there’s no Nathan MacKinnon on the Canucks. Hughes and Makar are the two preeminent puck-movers in the league, of that there is little question. If Makar breaks the bank at $16 million per year, Hughes is probably getting no less than $15 million.
But, much like Connor McDavid is doing in Edmonton, Hughes may be observing more than just how the checks get filled in. This is a Vancouver team that spent all of last season puking up its own stomach acids, and has only made the (proper) playoffs once in Hughes’s seven seasons (we’re eliminating the Bubbledome for this discussion). The Canucks haven’t exactly wowed him with their organizational standard, let’s say.
All this comes after a season in which the coaching staff and front office let the Elias Pettersson/J.T. Miller War Of The Roses go on so long and rot so deeply that they had to ship Miller out of town to keep Pettersson from cutting his hair with a razor blade and wearing black lipstick and Docs to the rink every day. Again, doesn’t speak to organizational stability.
If Hughes were curious, and wanted to look just a bit ahead to what the rest of his career would look like on the Pacific coast, there isn’t much to see with the Canucks. Only Pettersson is under 28 or 29 as far as core players. Brock Boeser was just re-upped, but Boeser is also the subject of non-stop “Is he elite?” discussions that drives everyone to the brink of insanity. Sitting around, waiting for Boeser’s shooting-percentage to spike again isn’t a solid plan for success.
Jake DeBrusk and Conor Garland (and his missing “n”) are fine role players, but not the kind of linchpins a contending team is built around. The story is even worse on the blue line, where beyond Hughes’s partner Filip Hronek, there’s just bongwater in Tyler Myers and Marcus Pettersson. Behind that, Thatcher Demko is already 29, though the aging curve for goalies is a little more forgiving than it is for skaters.
If one truly wanted to get a little devious, a glance at the Devils salary cap situation two years down the road shows some $60+ million available, and also Dougie Hamilton entering the last year of his deal, which would make him movable should the need arise. As wonky as the past couple seasons for the Devils have been, Quinn Huges would see his brothers, Nico Hischier, Brett Pesce, Jesper Bratt, and Timo Meier all locked in for a while. That’s far more secure and promising than what the Canucks currently are rocking.
If it comes down to just money, and making Hughes one of the top-five highest paid players in the league, that shouldn’t present much of a problem for Vancouver. If it comes down to what they can promise him on the ice, maybe we should all prepare for yet another mass Canucks fan meltdown. Good thing we’ve had lots of practice.
How Worried Do The Canucks Need To Be About Quinn Hughes?