The window for Canucks captain Quinn Hughes to sign an extension with the club opens in July of 2026.
There was an odd, “uh oh” moment during team management’s limited media availability on Monday. Canucks President of Hockey Operations Jim Rutherford, when discussing the club’s future desire to lock up their star defenceman with a long term contract when he becomes eligible, said the following:
“The one thing we will be sure of, we’ll have enough (salary) cap space to offer him the kind of contract that he deserves,” Rutherford stated. “That’s the one thing we can prepare for, and it might not boil down to money with him. You know, he’s said before he wants to play with his brothers, and that would be partly out of our control. In our control, if we brought his brothers here.”
One could hear Canucks General Manager Patrik Alvin, sitting next to Rutherford, fidgeting.
Oops. Rutherford is talking about two players currently under contract with the New Jersey Devils. 21-year-old Luke Hughes, the youngest of the three NHL brothers, is a left-shot D-man presently playing in the playoffs after wrapping up the 3rd year of his entry level contract.
The Devils own Luke’s rights, he’s an restricted free agent (RFA), but not eligible for an offer sheet from another NHL team based on the amount of his playing experience. Devils GM Tom Fitzgerald plans to sign him to as lucrative a deal as possible.
23-year-old brother Jack is a star centre with five years remaining on a contract that pays him $8-million per season. Do we expect Jack to demand a trade to the Canucks. Not bloody likely.
Rutherford continued.
“There’s many moving parts here, agree 100-percent, this franchise cannot afford to lose a guy like Quinn Hughes, and we will do everything we can to keep him here, but at the end of the day it’ll be his decision.”
After an awkward pause and laugh from Allvin, the 76-year-old prez continued.
“Well we’ve gotta be careful here with tampering here, so we’ll just leave it at that, I probably crossed the line anyways.”
Yeah, probably. Interested to see if we hear anything from the league and/or from the Devils.
