Canucks: Quinn Hughes' apparent misery

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Patrick Johnston: The Canucks’ captain doesn’t seem to have any story to tell — and that’s a story on its own. An ominous one

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Published Nov 12, 2025 • Last updated 1 hour ago • 3 minute read

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Vancouver Canucks captain Quinn Hughes waits for a faceoff during the first period against the Colorado Avalanche at Rogers Arena on Sunday night Photo by DARRYL DYCK /THE CANADIAN PRESSArticle content

Even in the midst of relentlessly gloomy days, Bo Horvat would arrive at the rink with a story to tell. He knew his job was to give some hope, some life, to the Vancouver Canucks’ ambitions, even if in the moment they weren’t winning.

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This is all for something, this is a thing we have to learn. There’s a purpose to all of this, he’d say.

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And he did this even before he was named captain in 2019. He spent a whole year as the informal leader of the Canucks, practising for an obvious future as the man who wore the C.

He did get to learn at the side of the greatest Canucks captain of them all. And Henrik Sedin learned from Markus Naslund, who learned from Mark Messier and Trevor Linden. Linden learned from Stan Smyl. And so on.

There was a thread. Many of those years weren’t easy and yet the captains all found things to highlight, narratives to push, a story to tell.

What we saw after Tuesday’s 5-3 loss to the Winnipeg Jets was a captain apparently out of answers. Quinn Hughes’ post-game availability was so curt the Canucks’ social media team made minimal note of it. You can find it if you dig around the team website or go to YouTube, but if you’re looking for short-form social media, you won’t find it.

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And let’s be honest: Hughes’ performance post-game is not in isolation. More and more he’s not arriving in front of the cameras with a story to tell. And who can blame him? This season is already a slog. His team’s ambitions are set to be cut off at the knees.

Last season was an awful drain on him. The overall course of things has surely been a drain on him: don’t forget that Adam Foote is the fourth coach he’s had in five seasons. Turnover like that is not inspiring.

He’s been doing his best to drag this team forward. Even in a game where he left for a time with an injury that he dismissed as simply a “weird play,” he made a difference. He played 28 minutes! He had three assists! (Did you now he has six points in four games?)

And yet his team still lost. His team is 8-9-1. They may be playing entertaining hockey many nights, but to make the playoffs they need to win more.

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Quinn Hughes holds his arm and kneels on the ice after getting tangled up with Winnipeg Jets’ Mark Scheifele, not seen, during the second period on Tuesday night Photo by DARRYL DYCK /THE CANADIAN PRESS

Behind the scenes, Hughes is apparently still upbeat, still focused on the task at hand. But that’s not what he’s showing when he gets the chance to present himself to the public.

And that’s both a strange thing and an understandable thing.

It’s strange given the Horvat lesson: no matter how bad people may think things are, it’s your job as the team’s chief spokesperson to sell a different story. Hughes may feel frustrated with the perception of the team, let alone the reality of the team, but he’s not saying anything to make anyone think otherwise.

“What happened to Hughes last night,” more than a few people asked me Wednesday morning. His apparent injury was the topic of the day at school drop-off. I had to reply that I didn’t know, that when he was asked about the apparent injury after the game he didn’t share any details.

All this said, it’s understandable he’s showing frustration. After all, he wants to win. He’s not been seeing much of that lately.

Maybe what Horvat did was just impossible to repeat.

pjohnston@postmedia.com

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Canucks: Quinn Hughes’ apparent misery

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