\u201cAs I get going here and feel more comfortable and get my legs under me, this is going to be exciting,\u201d Hughes said at the time.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Exciting, indeed.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Wild were already on the upswing following a 11-1-2 November. The blockbuster trade for Hughes from Vancouver in mid-December drove excitement throughout the Minnesota fanbase and within the Wild dressing room, too.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen Quinn came in, we got a little bit more swagger, and we\u2019re building on it,\u201d said goaltender Filip Gustavsson, after an overtime victory against Montreal on Feb. 2.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Some of Hughes\u2019 stats speak for themselves, and in less than a full season, Hughes has already etched his name into the Minnesota Wild franchise record book.\u00a0<\/p>\n
His assist in the third period of the April 2 game against his former team, in a game that officially clinched the Wild\u2019s spot in the playoffs, gave Hughes 46 assists in 43 games with the Wild this season, a new franchise record for assists in a single season by a defenseman, bumping Ryan Suter from the top spot (45 assists in 78 games in 2017-18). Hughes also reached 50 points (4-46=50) with the Wild in that game, becoming the fastest player in franchise history to reach the 50-point milestone.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Since arriving in Minnesota, Hughes is one of the top players in the league in recording assists. Hughes also needs one more point this season to set the franchise record for the most points by a defenseman in a single season.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that it\u2019s not easy being traded, especially when you\u2019ve been somewhere for so long,\u201d Hughes said ahead of the game against Vancouver on April 2. \u201cBut I felt like in January I was playing as good as I can. Felt like I played as good as I can at the Olympics.\u201d\u00a0
Hughes and his younger brother, Jack, a forward with the New Jersey Devils and scorer of the gold-medal-winning goal for Team USA at the Olympics, had a whirlwind combination of hockey and media appearances \u2013 including a spot on Saturday Night Live \u2013 following the Olympic break.<\/p>\n
Before facing his old team recently, Hughes spoke about his experience so far in Minnesota, saying how he\u2019s loved it, being around his teammates and coaching staff.<\/p>\n
\u201cI felt the month of January was really good for me to kind of get acclimated and obviously everything that happened in February was unbelievable,\u201d Hughes said. \u201cBut you get acclimated, then you leave and then you\u2019re trying to get reacclimated.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut really enjoying it. Obviously looking forward to play playoff hockey here.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cAs I get going here and feel more comfortable and get my legs under me, this is going…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":591268,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,575,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-591267","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-nhl","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591267","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=591267"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/591267\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/591268"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=591267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=591267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=591267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}