Zeev Buium

The Quinn Hughes trade rumor mill has come to an end.  The Wild have acquired the blueliner from the Canucks in exchange for center Marco Rossi, defenseman Zeev Buium, winger Liam Ohgren, and a 2026 first-round pick.  Both teams have announced the swap.

Dating back to the offseason, there had been speculation that a trade involving Hughes could happen at some point.  The blueliner had talked about liking the idea of one day playing with his brothers, something Canucks president Jim Rutherford also referenced.  To that end, the Devils were believed to have had discussions about the idea of making a move for him with those discussions resurfacing this week amid talks with several other suitors.

Minnesota was not among those known suitors but they have won the sweepstakes for Hughes, making a significant addition to their back end.  The 26-year-old has been one of the top-scoring defensemen in the NHL in recent years and is only two seasons removed from winning the Norris Trophy as the NHL’s top blueliner while finishing third in voting for the award last season.

This season, Hughes has played in 26 games with Vancouver, picking up two goals and 21 assists while logging a career-high 27:26 of ice time per night.  For his career, he checks in at just below the point-per-game mark with 61 goals and 371 helpers in 459 regular season games.  He has produced at a similar rate in the postseason, notching two goals and 24 assists in 30 playoff contests from the Canucks’ playoff appearances in 2020 and 2024.

It’s an understatement to say that adding Hughes will be a significant addition to Minnesota’s back end.  The team has leaned heavily on Brock Faber in the early going this season with veterans Jonas Brodin and Jared Spurgeon also logging over 20 minutes a night.  That’s a solid foundation but a group that was lacking a legitimate number one defender.  That’s now no longer the case with Hughes sliding in as that missing piece with Jacob Middleton (when healthy) also serving as a top-four-caliber piece.

Hughes has two seasons remaining on his contract with a team-friendly $7.85MM AAV.  It’s plausible that he could double that when his contract expires and have a chance to be the highest-paid defenseman in the NHL.  Interestingly enough, he’s going to a team that employs the highest-paid player in NHL history as of next season in winger Kirill Kaprizov.

Clearly, GM Bill Guerin, who is also the GM for Team USA at the upcoming Olympics, feels he will be able to make a strong pitch for Hughes to stick around for the long haul, even if it requires another record-setting contract to do so.  Hughes will be eligible to sign a contract extension as of July 1st although Minnesota has received no assurances that he’ll do so, according to The Athletic’s Michael Russo (Twitter link).  Notably, with new CBA restrictions on term and bonus structure kicking in next September, Minnesota will have about a 10-week window to try to lock Hughes up to an eight-year extension before the maximum length of a deal drops to seven seasons.

The Wild currently sit in third place in a hotly contested Central Division.  They’re behind Colorado and Dallas, the top two teams in the NHL by a considerable margin while Winnipeg, who won the Presidents’ Trophy last season, is also in their division as well, though languishing as of late.  With this move, an already difficult division gets a lot more difficult but the opportunity to add an elite defender to his group is an opportunity that Guerin clearly couldn’t pass up.

As for Vancouver, this is a situation they clearly didn’t want to be in on multiple fronts.  For starters, the recent trade speculation was hardly ideal and it was recently acknowledged that it was a discussion point in the dressing room.  Meanwhile, their preference certainly would have been to try to lock him up long-term but TSN’s Darren Dreger reports (Twitter link) that they’ve known for a while that he wouldn’t do so.  However, considering that the Canucks sit dead last in the NHL standings with just 25 points in 31 games and are coming off missing the playoffs last season, a retool of some sorts was going to be on the horizon.  Taking a step back would have lowered the chances of Hughes re-signing while moving him allowed for the potential to kick-start that roster restructuring.

There’s a strong case to make that Rutherford and GM Patrik Allvin have accomplished that with this trade.  For starters, they bring in a highly-touted young defender in Buium who they hope can be an impact piece right away, particularly on the offensive front.

The 20-year-old was the 12th overall pick by Minnesota not even a year and a half ago.  He signed his entry-level contract at the end of his college season back in April and made his NHL debut in the playoffs, picking up an assist in four games.  Buium has been a regular on the back end for the Wild this year, playing in 31 games where he has put up three goals and 11 assists in 18:28 of playing time per game.  He should have a chance to play a little higher on the depth chart with the Canucks with a regular spot in the top four behind Filip Hronek, Marcus Pettersson, and Tyler Myers being a legitimate possibility.  With a longer-term lens, he could be a potential long-term partner with fellow rookie Tom Willander.

Buium is signed on his entry-level contract through the 2026-27 campaign with a cap hit of $967K plus an additional $1MM in potential ‘A’ bonuses in each year.  If he progresses as expected, his second contract could wind up eclipsing what Hughes is making now while giving them a foundational blueliner, albeit not a franchise one like Hughes is.  Buium is under team control through the 2032-33 season.

As for Rossi, he helps fill a need that the Canucks have had for quite some time as a legitimate second-line center to play behind Elias Pettersson.  J.T. Miller and Bo Horvat were on the roster is past years but both were ultimately moved out and with due respect to Filip Chytil who can be a quality player when healthy, Vancouver lost a lot of impact depth down the middle with those swaps.  Rossi isn’t at the level of Miller or Horvat but he will be a substantial upgrade on their current depth options, a group headlined by recent UFA signing David Kampf.

The 24-year-old was the ninth pick back in the 2020 draft class.  Rossi battled myocarditis not long after being selected which stalled his development although he bounced back without any long-term concerns.  He had a solid showing in 2023-24 with 40 points in 82 games and then was considerably more productive last season, tallying 24 goals and 36 assists in 82 regular season games while playing over 18 minutes per night.  However, his ice time dropped in the playoffs to just 11 minutes per game and he remained a subject of consistent trade speculation throughout the summer with the two sides well apart on contract talks for a considerable amount of time.

Eventually, the parties worked out a three-year, $15MM bridge deal in late August.  He will remain under team control at its expiration for one more year but will be owed a $6MM qualifying offer with salary arbitration rights.  Meanwhile, Rossi has produced at a similar level this season, picking up four goals and nine assists in 17 games.  However, he has missed the last four weeks with a lower-body injury although he took part in Minnesota’s morning skate on Thursday which suggests he’s getting closer to returning.  With Pettersson out of the lineup himself, it’s possible that Rossi could jump right into a top-line role depending on when he returns.  He and Braeden Cootes – a 2025 first-round pick – now give Vancouver some much-needed longer-term stability behind Pettersson down the middle.

As for Ohgren, he’s an intriguing addition to this swap.  The 21-year-old was a first-round pick by the Wild in 2022, going 19th overall.  However, his development hasn’t gone quite as planned to this point.

Ohgren had his first full season in North America in 2024-25 and was quite productive with AHL Iowa, amassing 19 goals and 18 assists in 41 games, more than solid production for a rookie.  But while that yielded some opportunities with Minnesota, he wasn’t able to produce very much, being limited to just two goals and three assists in 24 games.  This season, he’s still looking for his first point after being held off the scoresheet in his first 18 outings while logging just 9:32 per night.  Ohgren briefly saw some action with Iowa as well, notching two goals and three helpers in nine games.

That made Ohgren a legitimate change-of-scenery candidate.  He should have an opportunity to play a little higher up the depth chart at some point with Vancouver and if he can turn into a productive secondary scorer, he’s someone who can be a useful piece for them for a while.  In the second season of his entry-level deal, Ohgren has a cap hit of $887K along with $500K in ‘A’ bonuses per year.  He’s under club control through the 2030-31 campaign.

Between these players and a first-round pick, Vancouver has added what they hope will be several core players to help them down the road.  If all goes well, it will result in them taking a step back to take a couple of steps forward down the road.

From a salary cap perspective, Rick Dhaliwal of CHEK and The Athletic mentions (Twitter link) that there is no salary cap retention on any players in the swap.  PuckPedia notes that the Wild are adding a net cap charge of just under $997K over a full season.  Using their numbers, that means that Minnesota is now projected to finish the year around $2.1MM below the cap ceiling, meaning that Guerin still has some financial flexibility to try to add to his roster later in the year.  Meanwhile, Vancouver is still operating in LTIR although they should be able to dip below that threshold before too long, allowing them to bank some cap space to put toward some of the bonuses for their entry-level players.

Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman was the first to report that Hughes was being traded to the Wild.  Dreger was the first with the full trade return.

Photos courtesy of Sergei Belski and Nick Wosika-Imagn Images.