Will the inevitable Quinn Hughes trade leave everybody underwhelmed?

It might. Except, of course, for the team that gets Quinn Hughes.

It might not happen this month, or even this season. It might not happen this summer. But at some point before next season’s trade deadline it seems inevitable that the Vancouver Canucks are going to trade superstar defenseman Quinn Hughes to …. somebody.

Probably New Jersey.

Maybe somebody else (I wrote about some of the potential options today for Bleacher Report, but it is probably going to be New Jersey).

Not only is there plenty of smoke around this due to Hughes’ contract situation and speculated future plans, but team president Jim Rutherford even acknowledged the reality after the 2024-25 season when he said this regarding Hughes’ future in Vancouver:

“As for Quinn, no, I don’t have a deadline on that,” said Rutherford. “I mean, I’ll say the obvious. He’s a wonderful person and a great player, but we do control him for two more years. I think a better way of saying that is that we control him for a year and two-thirds, because if we get to that trade deadline two years from now, and it looks like he doesn’t want to stay then, then we would have to do something at that point. But we are hoping that he’s here to stay and he’s the leader of the team and the face of the franchise.”

The greatest thing about Rutherford is that guy will not bullshit you, and when he says something, he does it. They do not make hockey executives like him anymore. He also usually acts on it quickly. And if he believes the Canucks can not keep Hughes beyond his current contract, he is 99.9 percent likely to trade him before he loses him for nothing. Hughes is not actually eligible to sign a new contract extension with the Canucks until this offseason, but the team probably has some sort of idea as to what his long-term goals and interests are. Combine that with the fact the Canucks are stuck in mud and have what might be one of the bleakest long-term (and short-term) outlooks in the league, and it is not hard to see where this is all going.

This is where the fun begins (unless you are a Canucks fan), because now we get to sit around and not only talk about where he might go, but also what he might go for in a trade.

There is a boilerplate for this.

This is also where hockey fans, and the people covering hockey, lose their collective minds.

It is a four-step process.

1. The Demands

Canucks fans are going to ask for and expect the moon, and maybe even a whole ass planet, in exchange for Hughes.

That is understandable. Hughes is their best player, one of the best players in hockey, and he is still in the prime of his career. Nobody wants to lose their best and favorite player for nothing or get short-changed in a trade. The sooner they trade him, the more term he has remaining on his contract. That means a bigger potential return.

There is going to be no prospect, young player, or draft pick in another organization that is going to be off limits for their demands. If you want our best player, you are going to pay and we are going to rebuild our entire organization with this trade. This is going to be our Eric Lindros moment.

2. The Rumors

From a media perspective, the asking prices will start to leak out. A lot of those young players and prospects and combinations of draft picks will be reported as being in play. The Canucks like Ryan Leonard. They want unprotected first-round picks. They want young centers. They want multiple tier-1 level prospects. They have interest in these players. They will need another young defenseman to help replace Hughes. Other executives will hear the whispers and pass them along. The Canucks are not going to do this unless they get X, Y and Z. They will wait and be patient to get the offer they want.

Steps 1 and 2 will then set the stage for Step 3.

3. The ‘Offers’

Fans of the teams rumored to be in play for Hughes will set their untouchables in the organization.

Some 18-year-old that was a late first-round pick in 2025 and is currently playing for Moose Jaw in the Western Hockey League will be untouchable. Him? Are you serious?

You can pry our promising young NHL player from our cold dead hands.

We will see you in hell before we take all of that remaining contract, and in fact, you are going to take OUR bad contract in return just as an assertion of our dominance.

A second-round pick will be offered as an olive branch.

4. The Trade

Then, eventually, after all of the noise has been shouted a trade will happen. The actual trade will only have a vague resemblance to the reported offers and rumors, and will probably leave Canucks fans underwhelmed, fans of teams that did not land Hughes underwhelmed (we could have beaten that offer) and really only leave the fans of the team that actually acquired Hughes happy.

These are not my opinions.

These are the rules of NHL trades in the modern era.

I think the problem (and I don’t know what other word to use for this other than problem) is that teams, in general, are a lot smarter than they used to be. They have more information at their disposal and a better understanding of value. Even the dumb teams aren’t THAT dumb compared to what the dumb teams of the past were.

There are still good GMs and front office and bad GMs and front offices, but there’s not a lot of true dumbasses out there right now.

Teams might get the player evaluation part wrong, they might not utilize the draft picks in the best ways, and they might have the wrong vision for what they want their team to be, but they mostly understand player and trade value.

Teams are too smart to allow an Eric Lindros or Herschel Walker (NFL) trade to happen again. It is just not going to happen.

The truly elite players in the NHL do not get traded very often, and especially not in the prime of their careers. The best returns that happen in the rare instances they ARE traded usually involve a very good, but not great, young NHL player, one really good prospect, a veteran throw-in to help balance salary or roster space, and one or two first-round picks (usually one with a condition attached to it and/or lottery protections) depending on just how elite the player is and how much of their contract is remaining.

Set your expectations accordingly.

But these are just my insane ramblings. To get a better understanding of this let’s just look at some recent trades involving comparable players and what the returns looked like.

The only issue, of course, is there are not many comparable trades to look at.

Not only because there are not many players like Quinn Hughes, but also because the few players like him that DO exist almost never get traded.

Let’s try to look anyway.

Let’s talk about it.