Quinn Hughes surveys the scene at Rogers Arena on Dec. 11, 2025, one day before being traded to the Minnesota Wild. (Photo by Jeff Vinnick/NHLI via Getty Images)
NHLI via Getty Images
After months of speculation, the deal is done. Friday night, Vancouver Canucks defenseman Quinn Hughes was traded to the Minnesota Wild.
In exchange, the Canucks receive three highly regarded prospects plus Minnesota’s first-round pick in the 2026 draft. Here are the players:
- Marco Rossi: A 24-year-old center from Austria, Rossi was selected ninth overall in 2020. He had a breakout season in 2024-25, finishing with 60 points in 82 games, but went through a rather acrimonious negotiation with the Wild before inking a three-year bridge deal with a cap hit of $5 million per season on Aug. 22. He’ll be a restricted free agent with arbitration rights when the deal concludes.
Rossi got off to a good start this season, with 13 points in 17 games, before he was sidelined with a lower-body injury in mid-November. Wild coach John Hynes said Friday afternoon that Rossi was close to being ready to return to action, so he should be in the lineup soon for the Canucks, who have been woefully thin down the middle due to injuries of their own. - Liam Ohgren: A 21-year-old from Sweden, Ohgren was selected 19th overall in 2022. He grew up playing in the Djurgarden program and won silver with Sweden at the 2024 world junior championship on a line with current Canuck prospect Jonathan Lekkerimaki, and with young Canucks blueliners Elias Pettersson and Tom Willander on defense.
A winger, Ohgren has been up and down between the NHL Wild and their AHL affiliate, the Iowa Wild, this season. All told, he has seven points in 46 NHL games to date and still technically qualifies as a rookie.
Ohgren is in the second year of his entry-level contract and is waiver-exempt. - Zeev Buium: The 20-year-old from San Diego might be the most highly regarded prospect of the three. A dynamic left defenseman like Hughes, Buium was selected 12th overall in 2024 by the Wild. Hailing from Southern California, Buium has already won a national championship as a freshman at the University of Denver along with two world junior championships with Team USA. Last spring, he also won gold at the senior men’s worlds, on a team that included current Canucks Conor Garland and Drew O’Connor.
Buium made his NHL debut with the Wild during the 2025 Stanley Cup playoffs, and acquitted himself well. Now, in his official rookie year, he’s averaging 18:28 per game and has 14 points in 31 games.
That’s a lot to give up, but elite talents in their prime don’t come available very often. Hughes, 26, was selected eighth overall by the Canucks in 2018 and quickly established himself as one of the top defensemen in the game. Though he’s undersized at 5-foot-10 and 180 pounds, he’s an elite skater who patrols the blue line effortlessly, and whose pinpoint passing makes him one of the top set-up men in the league.
He’s also tireless, averaging a league-leading 27:26 per game this season, nearly a minute per game more than second-place Zach Werenski.
With 432 points in 459 games with the Canucks, Hughes is the top-scoring player from his draft class, and won the Norris Trophy as the league’s top defenseman in 2024.
So why trade him away? Hughes doesn’t become an unrestricted free agent until 2027, but word is trickling out from respected NHL Insiders on Friday night that the Canucks already had a good idea that he wasn’t going to be interested in re-signing in Vancouver when he becomes eligible for an extension on July 1, 2026.
This aligns with the bomb that Canucks president Jim Rutherford dropped at Vancouver’s year-end media availability late last April, indicating that at some point, Quinn would be looking to play on the same team as his brothers Jack and Luke, who are both with the New Jersey Devils.
And while Hughes did not make it all the way to New Jersey, one of USA Hockey’s most luminous stars has now moved to a market south of the border, playing for the general manager of the U.S. Olympic team in Minnesota GM Bill Guerin, and alongside other Team USA stars like Matt Boldy and right-handed defenseman Brock Faber.
As they celebrate their franchise’s 25th anniversary without ever having gone farther than the Western Conference Final in 2003, the Wild are also hungry to establish themselves as one of the NHL’s elite franchises. To that end, Guerin inked star forward Kirill Kaprizov to an eight-year contract extension worth a record-setting $136 million in September.
Injuries and other issues torpedoed the Canucks early this season, and they currently sit in last place overall in the NHL standings. That further diluted the team’s chances of retaining Hughes, who has only appeared in 30 playoff games so far in his career and is eager for the opportunity to compete for a championship. Now, the Wild have up to 18 months to convince him that the State of Hockey is the right place to pursue those goals. Otherwise, he could be on the move again before his free-agency date finally arrives on July 1, 2027.
The Wild play back-to-back home afternoon games this weekend — Saturday against the Ottawa Senators (2 p.m. ET) and Sunday against the Boston Bruins (6 p.m. ET). Quinn Hughes could be in the lineup against Boston. The Canucks open a five-game road trip at Prudential Center in Newark against the Devils on Sunday afternoon (12:30 p.m. ET).
