The Canucks Don't Hold The Leverage In Quinn Hughes' Next Contract, So What's Next?

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The Vancouver Canucks now have another player’s future to worry about in a year to forget.

Last season, the Canucks were one of the best stories in the NHL, winning the Pacific Division and getting into the second round of the Stanley Cup playoffs after a three-year post-season drought. This year, Vancouver took a step backward, winning 12 fewer games, dealing with a rift between stars Elias Pettersson and former Canuck J.T. Miller and missing the playoffs altogether.

If that wasn’t enough, Canucks president of hockey operations Jim Rutherford came out Monday and touched on a topic that should give Vancouver fans reason for anxiety. That is the long-term future of Vancouver superstar defenseman Quinn Hughes, who will be eligible to sign a contract extension on July 1, 2026, one year before he can become a UFA in 2027.

“The one thing that we will be sure of (is) that we will have enough cap space to offer him the kind of contract that he deserves – that's the one thing we can prepare for,” Rutherford told reporters about Hughes’ future. “It may not boil down to money with him. He said before he wants to play with his brothers. That would be partly out of our control, in our control if we brought his brothers here.”

Of course, Quinn's brothers, Jack Hughes and Luke Hughes, play with the New Jersey Devils. While Rutherford said the Canucks would do “everything we can” to keep Quinn Hughes in Vancouver, just the thought of their captain leaving the Canucks should sound the panic alarm yet again.

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Canucks Patrik Allvin And Jim Rutherford Speak On Rick Tocchet’s Contract, Practice Facilities, And Ticket PricesOn Monday, the Vancouver Canucks held their end of season media for Patrik Allvin and Jim Rutherford. Here are three notable topics they discussed.
The Canucks don’t have leverage right now after a dramatic and disappointing season, which means Vancouver management must map out Plans A, B, C and D when it comes to Hughes’ future.

Plan A would be to find a way to keep Quinn Hughes. The best way to do that is to get back on the winning track and make the Canucks a better competitive bet than New Jersey would be when Hughes can sign an extension. They were on track to prove that last season when they almost made it to the Western Conference final with a Norris Trophy-winning Hughes and Jack Adams Award-winning Rick Tocchet. After this season, it looks far less likely that Vancouver will be better than New Jersey long-term.

That said, the Canucks can be aggressive in the trade market and free agency to make these next two seasons count more than any in recent years. If they know they might struggle to keep Hughes, they can take advantage of the time they have with one of the best defensemen in the NHL to try their hardest to win a Stanley Cup right now and deal with the long-term consequences later.

Another option to accomplish Plan A is to try to acquire Jack and Luke Hughes, like Rutherford suggested, but good luck with that. Jack Hughes is New Jersey's franchise center under contract through 2030, and Luke Hughes has two 40-point campaigns in the NHL already as a 21-year-old. The Canucks just don’t have the assets right now to make the Devils a convincing offer.

If they can’t do Plan A – which will also be more difficult if they can’t re-sign Hughes’ friend, right winger Brock Boeser, to an extension this summer – then Plan B will be getting out in front of this Hughes crossroads and figuring out what can be salvaged.

That probably means trading Hughes sometime next season or, at the latest, next summer. If Rutherford and GM Patrik Allvin wait longer than that, the Devils will simply wait out the Canucks and sign Quinn Hughes without giving up a single asset in return for Hughes’ services.

But make no mistake – Vancouver can’t and won’t find equal value for Hughes, because there are only one or two other defensemen who have a skill set close to Hughes’. You’ve got Cale Makar in Colorado and Zach Werenski in Columbus. That’s about it, and they’re going nowhere.

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Rick Tocchet Sounds Like He Has Unfinished Business With The Vancouver CanucksThe Vancouver Canucks are out of the playoffs and moving into summer mode, but 2024 Jack Adams Award winner Rick Tocchet will hold onto the title of NHL coach of the year for a few more weeks.
Meanwhile, Canucks star goalie Thatcher Demko’s contract is set to expire at the end of next season, and there’s no assurance that coach Rick Tocchet will stick around. So it’s theoretically possible that Vancouver can lose its Jack Adams Award-winning coach and two key players for nothing in return other than their salary cap space. That has to be a nightmare for Canucks fans who at one time pictured Hughes and Demko finishing their career in Vancouver.

There’s still lots of time left for the Canucks to figure out how to make Quinn Hughes and Demko happy and sign them to multi-year extensions, like the Winnipeg Jets did with Mark Scheifele and Connor Hellebuyck in 2023. That said, it's amazing how quickly a team’s future can crumble.

There has to be some type of parachute solution that keeps a team competitive in the wake of any free-agency decision that’s made beyond their control, but that almost always means you’re not going to get 100 percent value on any player who is determined to leave. The leverage in many, if not most, cases falls at the feet of the players involved, and Hughes is a year or two away from a crossroads that will leave him in full control over his future.

The allure of playing with Luke and Jack Hughes might be so enticing to Quinn Hughes that nothing the Canucks can do will stop Quinn Hughes from leaving at the first opportunity he gets. So buckle up, Canucks fans – the tumult we’ve seen from Vancouver this season could be only the start of foundational change for this franchise sooner than later.

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