{"id":619973,"date":"2026-07-11T06:09:54","date_gmt":"2026-07-11T06:09:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/619973\/"},"modified":"2026-07-11T06:09:54","modified_gmt":"2026-07-11T06:09:54","slug":"wild-2025-26-report-cards-quinn-hughes-the-hockey-writers-minnesota-wild","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/619973\/","title":{"rendered":"Wild 2025-26 Report Cards: Quinn Hughes – The Hockey Writers – Minnesota Wild"},"content":{"rendered":"

The month of July continues to move along, as does the NHL offseason, and the trade rumors<\/a> continue to fly as they usually do during this time of the year, and one of the Minnesota Wild\u2019s most influential players is among them. Since Quinn Hughes has yet to sign an extension<\/a> with the Wild, the rumors have started to fly all over X <\/a>about whether he\u2019ll end up with the Wild or not.\u00a0<\/p>\n

All of the Wild\u2019s defensemen have received their grades with the exception of Hughes. He\u2019s the last one but definitely not the least, as he easily made the most impact of all the defensemen. Every Wild fan will likely remember hearing the news that their team had picked up Hughes in a trade; many didn\u2019t believe it at first, but once the shock wore off, there was newfound hope for the team. In this article, we\u2019ll look at how Hughes performed in the regular season and the postseason to come up with an overall grade.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Hughes Shows Up\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Wild made a blockbuster of a trade to acquire Quinn Hughes<\/a> that sent Marco Rossi, Zeev Buium, Liam \u00d6hgren, and a first-round pick for the 2026 draft to the Vancouver Canucks.<\/a> They gave up a lot but got a lot in return, and it\u2019s safe to say that they haven\u2019t regretted the decision. He played in 48 games for the Wild, and in that time, he scored five goals but had 48 assists for 53 points. With those assists, he set a new Wild record for most assists by a defenseman<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Of course, everyone has seen what Hughes did offensively, but what about defensively? He wasn\u2019t a very physical player with just six hits, but he had 55 blocked shots. Not as many as some of his teammates, but he does tend to focus more on the offensive side than his teammates as well.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, I think quite honestly it was all of those things. I think when you add a player like Quinn (Hughes), I think the guys in the room, yeah, they walk a little bit taller, they\u2019ve got a little more swagger to them, because you just added a world-class player and you\u2019re better. The pace at which we could play at because Quinn moves the puck up so quickly and so efficiently. The pace of our game got better,\u201d said general manager Bill Guerin to the media in his end-of-season interview when asked about the trade for Hughes.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Although he didn\u2019t play all 82 games with the Wild, he played over half of them, and he did quite well. After looking at how he impacted the team both on the stat sheet and overall mood, he earned an A, just like his defensive partner, Brock Faber. It wasn\u2019t lower because he did pretty much everything right, but it wasn\u2019t higher because they could\u2019ve always used more.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Hughes Outshines in Postseason<\/p>\n

While everyone was dazzled by Hughes\u2019 performance in the regular season, he took it a step further in the postseason. He played in all 11 games of the Wild\u2019s playoff run, and he tied for first with Kirill Kaprizov for most points in that time. He scored four goals and had 11 assists, the exact same as Kaprizov for 15 points.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"MattMinnesota Wild left wing Matt Boldy talks to defenseman Quinn Hughes (Thomas Shea-Imagn Images)<\/p>\n

Again, he wasn\u2019t a big physical presence with just one hit in those 11 games, but he stepped up in blocked shots with 12. Just like above, these numbers weren\u2019t super impressive, but they still did the job, and his scoring spoke more than his defense. He didn\u2019t score a lot of goals in the postseason, but he made an impact with his assists and the way he played.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s the same to you guys as he is to us. I\u2019m sure. He\u2019s pretty chill and stoic and does his own thing. But no, he\u2019s such a, you know playing against him, you see plays he makes and this and that. And you\u2019re like \u2018alright, he\u2019s a good player.\u2019 And then watching him do it day in and day out, even the way he practices and his warm-ups before the game on the ice. Just seeing him do stuff, he\u2019s a special player. It\u2019s pretty cool, to get to have him here in Minnesota,\u201d said Jake Middleton<\/a> to the media in his end-of-season interview when asked about Hughes. \u00a0<\/p>\n

His efforts in the postseason<\/a> earned him an A as well, again just like Faber. He found that next level that everyone expects in the playoffs, and while it wasn\u2019t quite enough to get them all the way, it wasn\u2019t for lack of trying. He not only found another level but helped his teammates do so as well, as he\u2019s one of those players who can make others around him better. Those are the reasons his grade wasn\u2019t lower, but it\u2019s clear there\u2019s still more to his game, which is why it wasn\u2019t higher.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Hughes Overall Grade<\/p>\n

Hughes is one of the best, if not the best player the Wild have had on their roster since day one of their existence. He is a true bona fide superstar, and he\u2019s kept up his end of the bargain and given Wild fans hope and success. He is the true offensive-minded defenseman and helped his partner, Faber,<\/a> find even more to his game.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He earned an A for the regular season and an A for the postseason, which means his overall grade is an A. He didn\u2019t get higher because there\u2019s always room for improvement and it\u2019s easy to see he still has more to his game. He didn\u2019t get lower, however, because he was one of the Wild\u2019s hardest workers, and although there were mistakes at times, it wasn\u2019t all on him.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Hughes name is drawing a lot of attention lately for obvious reasons. Hopefully, Quinn Hughes will sign an extension with the Wild <\/a>soon, and these rumors will die down a bit. It\u2019ll be interesting to see what happens this offseason and what this season will bring.<\/p>\n

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\n <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The month of July continues to move along, as does the NHL offseason, and the trade rumors continue…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":606160,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5118],"tags":[1502,5,161,38,5280,4,1496,162],"class_list":["post-619973","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-minnesota-wild","tag-brock-faber","tag-hockey","tag-minnesota","tag-minnesota-wild","tag-minnesotawild","tag-nhl","tag-quinn-hughes","tag-wild"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116899861450027195","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619973","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=619973"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619973\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/606160"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=619973"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=619973"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=619973"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}