The Minnesota Wild and Quinn Hughes have yet to reach a contract extension to keep him there beyond this season.
That reality is going to heat up the trade rumors more and more as the season goes along. The last thing the Wild can do is let a superstar defenseman like Hughes leave in free agency and have nothing to show for it.
Minnesota surely would like to extend Hughes. That was almost certainly the plan all along when they traded with the Vancouver Canucks to bring him aboard last season. They knew his contract ran through 2026-27, and they’d have to land a longer-term deal to make that blockbuster trade fully worth it.
But for now, Hughes has no contract extension, which means moves around the NHL are going to take on the vibe that they impact him, too.
Like, for example, the Winnipeg Jets trading Connor Hellebuyck to the New Jersey Devils on Friday.
Quinn Hughes Impacted by Hellebuyck Trade
The Devils specifically are quite the intriguing destination for Hughes if he ends up being traded.
They already roster his two NHL brothers, Jack and Luke. Speculation has existed for years about how the trio of bros might end up on the same roster at some point.
While it would require some work for the Devils to pull off a blockbuster for Hughes after doing the Hellebuyck trade, that’s now the obvious direction that the trade winds seem to be blowing.
Not only do the Devils have the other two Hughes brothers, but they also have Team USA’s starting goalie from their Olympic gold medal team that Quinn and Jack Hughes were both such pivotal pieces for. That’s the kind of roster Quinn Hughes would surely love to be a part of.
The reality is that Hughes likely already wanted to go to New Jersey if he ended up being traded this season. That fact is probably just cemented by the Hellebuyck deal.
Will Wild Trade Quinn Hughes?
The bigger question is not whether the Devils make sense but whether the Wild will actually deal Hughes.
GM Bill Guerin isn’t afraid of making bold moves in both directions, so it’s not impossible.
By the same token, the Wild view themselves as Stanley Cup contenders and got Hughes to have him for years to come, not just for a season-and-a-half.
For the Wild to trade Hughes, to New Jersey or anywhere else, they’d likely either need to fall out of contention or get such a huge package in return that it was hard to turn down.
Minnesota’s contender status probably stops this deal from happening super soon. If it comes, it’d probably be a lot closer to the trade deadline.
This article was originally published on HEAVY
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