{"id":537596,"date":"2026-04-03T01:03:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-03T01:03:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/537596\/"},"modified":"2026-04-03T01:03:00","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T01:03:00","slug":"quinn-hughes-not-caught-up-in-canucks-matchup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/537596\/","title":{"rendered":"Quinn Hughes not caught up in Canucks matchup"},"content":{"rendered":"

The cold, gray rain pelting TRIA Rink\u2019s big windows Thursday morning provided a familiar welcome for the Vancouver Canucks, as they made their final visit to Minnesota this season.<\/p>\n

Such weather is often the default along Canada\u2019s scenic and soggy Pacific Coast.<\/p>\n

But asked about his familiarity with these skies after spending the first six-plus seasons of his NHL career in Vancouver, Wild defenseman Quinn Hughes offered a defense.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s some good weather there too, so that\u2019s all I\u2019ll say about that,\u201d Hughes quipped ahead of his first career meeting opposite the Canucks.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019ll probably be a fun night for him, and an interesting night,\u201d Wild coach John Hynes said of Hughes, comparing it to his experiences facing New Jersey and Nashville \u2013 the two teams he coached before coming to Minnesota.<\/p>\n

Thursday night\u2019s game in St. Paul featured familiar faces on both benches following the December blockbuster trade that brought Hughes to Minnesota.<\/p>\n

Former Wild forwards Marco Rossi and Liam Ohgren, and promising young defenseman Zeev Buium were on the outgoing end of that deal, and were set to make their St. Paul returns.<\/p>\n

Pregame prep also included Hynes searching for ways to slow down the trio that went to Vancouver in the trade. The Canucks are solidly in the NHL standings cellar, but there has been talk of a lengthy and lucrative contract extension for Buium, who is seen by many as a future star.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m happy for those guys,\u201d Hynes said. \u201cI think they\u2019re in a situation where they\u2019re getting some ice time, and they\u2019re playing pretty well and are a big part of the team now and a big part of the team moving forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hughes, who always seems laser-focused on whatever task or opponent is in front of him, said despite this week\u2019s rare four days off, the condensed nature of the 2025-26 NHL schedule has not left much time to dwell on memories of his time in Vancouver, or the strangeness of playing against the Canucks for the first time.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re so day-to-day and the season\u2019s flown by and so much has happened that you don\u2019t even really think about it until it\u2019s here,\u201d he said. \u201cIt probably won\u2019t feel real until, not even warmups, probably the game.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hughes offered a quick timeline of his last five months, starting with the trade in December, getting used to his new team in January, spending much of February in Italy winning a gold medal with Team USA, the whirlwind of post-Olympics parties and celebrations and his two trips to New York City for appearances on national television, then coming down from that high in March. April began with a chance for the Wild to officially clinch their place in the postseason with a win over Vancouver.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow you\u2019re ramping up for the playoffs, so the desperation has to be high,\u201d he said. \u201cYou have to be ready to go, and I\u2019m excited for that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Briefly<\/p>\n

Hughes caught up with an old friend earlier in the week when now-retired former University of Michigan coach Mel Pearson stopped by Wild practice in St. Paul and had lunch with the star defenseman he recruited and coached with the Wolverines for two seasons. Pearson, 67, was a prep star at Edina in 1977 and an assistant coach at Michigan for their two most recent NCAA titles (1996, 1998). In five years as the Wolverines\u2019 head coach, Pearson led them to the Frozen Four twice, including Hughes\u2019 freshman season in 2018, when they fell to Notre Dame in the semifinals of the national tournament in St. Paul. Amid a school investigation into allegations of a toxic atmosphere within the Michigan hockey program, Pearson was dismissed in the summer of 2022 after winning a Big Ten tournament title and getting to the Frozen Four earlier that year.<\/p>\n

\"AVancouver Canucks’ Quinn Hughes, right, skates with the puck behind Minnesota Wild goalie Filip Gustavsson (32) as Frederick Gaudreau defends during the second period of an NHL hockey game Thursday, Dec. 7, 2023, in Vancouver, British Columbia. (Darryl Dyck\/The Canadian Press via AP)
\n\"QuinnMinnesota Wild defenseman Quinn Hughes (43) steps onto the ice before an NHL hockey game against the Boston Bruins, Sunday, Dec. 14, 2025, in St. Paul, Minn. (AP Photo\/Bailey Hillesheim)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The cold, gray rain pelting TRIA Rink\u2019s big windows Thursday morning provided a familiar welcome for the Vancouver…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":453302,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5118],"tags":[5,161,38,5280,4,1496,43,162],"class_list":{"0":"post-537596","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-minnesota-wild","8":"tag-hockey","9":"tag-minnesota","10":"tag-minnesota-wild","11":"tag-minnesotawild","12":"tag-nhl","13":"tag-quinn-hughes","14":"tag-sports","15":"tag-wild"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116338086206757679","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537596","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=537596"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537596\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/453302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=537596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=537596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=537596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}