“Honestly, I don’t really know a lot of their guys.”
That was Quinn Hughes prior to his first-ever game against the Vancouver Canucks. It was, to be quite frank, a really weird thing to say about his former teammates.
Hughes played with all but four players who were in the Canucks’ lineup on Thursday night: Marco Rossi, Liam Öhgren, Zeev Buium, and Curtis Douglas. He should have, at the very least, a passing familiarity with the rest of the team.
To be entirely fair to Hughes, the full context makes it clear that he meant he didn’t really know many of the players on the Canucks.
“Obviously, I played with some of the young guys there, but for three or four months,” said Hughes. “A lot of the guys I was there with for the meat of my six years aren’t there.”
That’s certainly true. The Canucks have seen some heavy roster turnover in the last few years. Just five players who played for the Canucks in the 2024 Stanley Cup Playoffs were in the Canucks’ lineup on Thursday night. Hughes doesn’t have a deep, played-with-this-guy-my-whole-career connection with most of the Canucks at this point.
But boy howdy, there’s got to be a better way to say that than, “I don’t really know a lot of their guys.”
Let’s keep in mind that Hughes was the Canucks’ captain for two-and-a-half seasons. It feels like at least a small insight into his leadership style, or lack thereof. Wouldn’t it be his job to get to know his teammates and help them integrate into the team, especially the younger players?
Look, I’ve probably already made more of this than it deserves. It’s an off-handed comment, at about the same level as Bo Horvat’s infamous “A lot better than Vancouver, I’ll tell you that for free” quote.
Here’s the thing: hockey needs more villains — relatively innocent ones, not knee-maiming ones. Sometimes you need a player that you love to hate, and there are certainly some Canucks fans who have been getting a good hate on for Hughes, though that’s partly to do with things said and decisions made after he won the gold medal at the Olympics.
In any case, whatever you may think of Quinn Hughes, he at least did one last thing for the Canucks: he helped his former, unknown teammates lock up last place in the NHL when I watched this game.
The Wild opened the scoring on a turnover by Pierre-Olivier Joseph, as his clearing attempt was picked off by the similarly tri-named Joel Eriksson Ek. Matt Boldy picked up the loose puck and slipped it five-hole on Nikita Tolopilo, who had to respect the possibility of a pass.
While the Canucks may not have played a full 60 minutes, they played a solid 60 seconds. They scored both of their goals in a one-minute span late in the first period.
After Liam Öhgren drew a penalty while shorthanded, the Canucks struck at 4-on-4. Zeev Buium treated it almost like a 3-on-3 overtime, backing out into the neutral zone to maintain possession and allow the Canucks to attack on the regroup. Max Sasson dropped the puck to Teddy Blueger, whose shot went wide of the net, but bounced off the backboards to Tom Willander at the backdoor for a wide-open net.
It was a savvy play by Willander, sneaking up the ice while Ryan Hartman had his back turned. He must have known that Hartman has yet to establish object permanence.
42 seconds later, Jake DeBrusk made it 2-1 on the power play. Filip Hronek fired a bomb from the point that DeBrusk tipped off the crossbar. The puck ricocheted off the goal line and out, bouncing surprisingly high into the air, which goes to show just how hard Hronek’s shot truly was. DeBrusk was first to the airborne puck, swatting it in with some nifty hand-eye coordination.
That’s DeBrusk’s 15th power play goal of the season, which is tied for fifth in the NHL. It’s also tied for the 13th most power play goals in a season in Canucks history, and he could sneak past Trevor Linden into the top ten with two more power play goals this season.
The Canucks entered the first intermission up 2-1, but the Wild quickly took over in the second period, getting the tying goal just 23 seconds into the middle frame. After an exhausting game against the Colorado Avalanche the night before, it’s not surprising the Canucks ran out of gas in this game, especially with the price of gas these days.
Zeev Buium was mostly very good in this game, playing over 23 minutes in his return to Minnesota. But he was the goat on the Wild’s second goal, as he fanned on the puck at the offensive blue line, allowing Boldy to boldly go up the ice for a breakaway. Boldy picked the top corner with the practiced ease of Captain Picard requesting “Tea, Earl Grey, hot” from his replicator.
To the Canucks’ credit, they didn’t let Hughes score a goal in their antagonistic reunion. I mean, the skaters in front of Tolopilo tried to give Hughes a goal, leaving him open for a one-timer a minute into the second period, then allowing him to get a breakaway coming out of the penalty box later in the frame, but Tolopilo said, “I don’t know you!” and stopped him cold on both grade-A chances.
Tolopilo couldn’t do anything about the 3-2 goal, however. Elias Pettersson (D) politely handed the puck to Kirill Kaprisov in the defensive zone, and Kaprisov worked a cross-seam give-and-go with Mats Zuccarello that left Kaprisov all alone behind Marco Rossi for a one-timer.
Hartman added two more goals in the third period to seal the game away, complete with a sign saying, “This place is not a place of honour. No highly esteemed deed is commemorated here. Nothing valued is here.”
Hartman’s first goal was a tip-in from the top of the crease, as Tom Willander was ineffectually shoving him instead of tying up his stick. That seems to be a common theme among the young defencemen, which is worrying. Is Adam Foote not telling them to tie up sticks in front of the net?
As has become tradition this season, Foote pulled the goaltender for the extra attacker when there was very little chance of actually coming back. With just over four minutes left, Tolopilo bolted to the bench, and the Canucks went 6-on-5 while down by two. They managed to get five shots on goal before Hartman lofted the puck into the empty net from the defensive zone.
While it ultimately didn’t work out, I liked that Aatu Räty got to actually play at 6-on-5, as he was used for faceoff duty, but didn’t have to bolt to the bench. Räty is one of the young players with the most to prove in these final games of the 2025-26 season, and he went 11-for-14 in the faceoff circle and had a game-high four hits.
With the loss, the Canucks have officially clinched last place in the NHL, giving them the best odds of winning the draft lottery and picking first overall in the 2026 NHL Entry Draft and ensuring that they will pick no later than third overall. This makes May 5, 2026 one of the most important dates in Canucks history.
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