A blockbuster trade just went down in the NHL on Friday evening, and it somewhat has an effect on the Colorado Avalanche despite the team not being directly involved in the trade itself. The Vancouver Canucks have traded star defenseman Quinn Hughes to the Minnesota Wild.
Marco Rossi, Zeev Buium, Liam Ohgren and a first https://t.co/qrawIKD4Ov
— Elliotte Friedman (@FriedgeHNIC) December 13, 2025
The Avalanche are 12 points ahead of the Wild as of this trade, so it’s not entirely out of the question that Minnesota would be fighting for a high playoff spot in the future. Adding Hughes into their mix was a smart idea for the rest of this season and at least next year. He is currently on schedule to become an unrestricted free agent in 2027-28, and it’s unknown at this time whether or not he’ll sign an extension with the Wild. However, we won’t know if a long-term deal will get done until July 1st, when he becomes eligible to sign an extension—even an eight-year deal one, which only the Canucks can do right now.
The Avalanche can only control what they can control. They have to take down whoever is on their schedule any given night. They can’t control how good the Wild might end up being. However, With them being division foes, they’ll face each other three more times this season, giving Hughes a good amount of time to try and create headaches for the Western Conference leader Avalanche. That’s not something that I look forward to, as he could be a thorn in the Avs’ foot going forward.
On the positive side, Hughes has never actually scored against the Avalanche in his career. In 15 games vs Colorado, he has six assists, and a plus-minus of -2.
On another note, despite so many people suggesting that Hughes is one of the best, or even better than Cale Makar, I’d like to point out that he’s only reached double-digit goals twice in his career. With all due respect to anyone fighting that battle between who’s better, please give me a moment to try and stop laughing.
That’s not to say that the addition of Hughes won’t be a good move for the Wild. They still might have solved their goal differential issues, as they are near the bottom of the plus category at plus-5. They’ll want to do anything they can to improve that differential. Will it work out in their favour? Who knows.
If Hughes doesn’t end up signing an extension with the Wild, it would look silly on their part for giving up some assets. Kind of like the Hurricanes when they traded for Mikko Rantanen and then shipped him off to the Dallas Stars. They’ll want to avoid making that type of mistake, but we’ll see.