The Minnesota Wild have spent the past few weeks sweating out negotiations on a contract extension for Quinn Hughes. But they may have gotten an unexpected hand when his brother and New Jersey Devils star Jack Hughes spoke to the media at the NHL’s Player Media Tour in Las Vegas on Wednesday morning.
One year after Jack Hughes expressed excitement about the possibility of playing with Quinn Hughes on the same team, he was asked if winning an Olympic gold medal with his brother at the Milano Cortina Winter Olympics last winter “entices them even more” to make that a reality. But when asked, Jack Hughes laid out the situation honestly and may have given Wild fans a little bit of hope as they try to hammer out a deal.
“I think that, you know we’ve always wanted to play with each other,” Jack Hughes said via NHL.com senior writer Dan Rosen. “Winning in Milan was an unbelievable feat that we could do together, but I don’t think he’s going to sacrifice what’s best for him for us to play together. I mean, we’ll see. We’ll see what he does.”
Jack Hughes’s comments about playing with Quinn Hughes sparked a year of speculation
Jack Hughes’s comments are the latest chapter in Quinn Hughes’s contract negotiations with the Wild. While this summer has been filled with speculation and lopsided trade proposals that have Quinn Hughes joining Jack Hughes and fellow brother Luke Hughes in New Jersey, it all started when Jack Hughes commented that it would be a dream to share the ice with his brothers someday.
“That’s the headline question, you know,” Jack Hughes told The Athletic’s Pierre LeBrun at last year’s event. “Honestly, I’m not afraid to say it. Yeah, I would love for Quinn to – eventually I’d love to play with him. And whether that’s in New Jersey or at what time that takes, at some point, I want to play with Quinn. But yeah, that’s the question going around. They talk all day about it up in Vancouver, you know? But I’d love to play with Quinn at some point.”
The initial response drew a laugh from Quinn Hughes, who confirmed he would love to play with Jack Hughes and Luke Hughes someday. But he also acknowledged the reality of the situation, playing on different teams with lucrative contracts in hand.
“I mean, he’s my brother. What’s he supposed to say, first of all? ‘Like I don’t want to play with him, you know?’” Quinn Hughes told LeBrun. “…I mean we have contracts and whatnot. He’s on a different team. Would it be fun to play with those guys at some point? Of course. I think if you guys have brothers, you guys would say the same thing, and I feel like last year was a little bit of failure. So I feel like I got things to do there. And I know Jack loves, he loves Jersey and he’s got stuff to do also.”
While Quinn Hughes downplayed the comments, the speculation followed him when he informed his former team, the Vancouver Canucks that he did not intend to re-sign with the team when his contract expired after this upcoming season. Teams like the Detroit Red Wings also backed out of potential deals when Hughes was not willing to sign an extension with the team, but Wild general manager Bill Guerin took the risk anyway, sending Marco Rossi, Liam Ohgren, Zeev Buium and a 2026 first-round pick (Adam Novotny) to the Canucks to acquire Quinn Hughes last December.
Quinn Hughes has since won a gold medal with Jack Hughes at the Olympics and helped the Wild get out of the first round of the playoffs for the first time since 2015 last spring. Quinn Hughes also said he would “definitely be open to re-signing” with the Wild when last season ended, but the two sides have yet to strike a deal with speculation growing louder as the two hung out together over the summer, largely in the New Jersey area.
Quinn Hughes would have to turn down a lot of money to make an NHL family reunion happen
In many ways, fans expect the Hughes to unite in a similar way that Matthew Tkachuk and Brady Tkachuk united after Brady requested a trade from the Ottawa Senators to Matthew’s Florida Panthers this spring. But Jack Hughes also pointed out they were in a different situation. While Brady Tkachuk had a moveable contract with an annual average value of $8.2 million through the 2027-28 season, Quinn Hughes could cash in on a contract similar to the $20.4 million AAV Cale Makar got in his extension with the Colorado Avalanche.
The Athletic’s Michael Russo also noted that the Wild were willing to go $3.5 million above the $17 million AAV Kirill Kaprizov got in his eight-year, $136 million contract signed last September, which would amount to a $20.5 million AAV.
The Wild would love for that agreement to be as part of an eight-year deal and it would be hard for Quinn Hughes to turn down $164 million even if it kicked the opportunity to play with his brothers down the road. Even if he didn’t want to stay in Minnesota, it would be hard for the Devils to come up with the assets for a trade and fit it into their future plans, even with $32.3 million in cap space for next season according to Puckpedia.
"It's much easier for two brothers to play together than three," Jack Hughes admitted via Matt Larkin of Daily Faceoff. "And then on top of that, Quinn is one of the best players in the league and has a huge deal that's going to be coming."
That "huge deal" could come with any team. But it could be the hint that Quinn Hughes is closer to an extension that most believe and ease every Wild fan’s anxiety as they wait for Quinn Hughes to sign on the dotted line.
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