{"id":336115,"date":"2025-12-10T05:15:06","date_gmt":"2025-12-10T05:15:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/336115\/"},"modified":"2025-12-10T05:15:06","modified_gmt":"2025-12-10T05:15:06","slug":"are-the-rangers-making-a-push-for-vancouver-canucks-captain-quinn-hughes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/336115\/","title":{"rendered":"Are the Rangers making a push for Vancouver Canucks captain Quinn Hughes?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Most Vancouver Canucks fans are expecting Quinn Hughes to join the New Jersey Devils at some point.<\/p>\n

But, what if he joins a Devils\u2019 division rival instead?<\/p>\n

With no trade protection, the Canucks are free to trade Hughes to any team that submits the best offer.<\/p>\n

And apparently, the one team that recently made a blockbuster deal with the Canucks is now entering the Hughes trade chatter.<\/p>\n

NHL insider David Pagnotta of The Fourth Period reported on Monday<\/a> that the New York Rangers may be interested in trading for Hughes\u2019 services.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith all the attention on the New Jersey Devils and Quinn Hughes lately \u2013 and yes, the Detroit Red Wings and Philadelphia Flyers have been lumped in there, too \u2013 another team to look out for is the New York Rangers,\u201d Pagnotta wrote.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat would allocate a lot of dollars to their backend, but it wouldn\u2019t shock me to see the Blueshirts taking a swing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Drury\u2019s motivation to make a Hughes trade<\/p>\n

With New York Rangers GM Chris Drury entering his fifth season in charge, his team seems to be trending downwards.<\/p>\n

Drury and the Rangers made it to the Eastern Conference Final in two of his first three seasons. That included a Presidents\u2019 Trophy-winning season in 2023-24.<\/p>\n

However, after missing the playoffs last season, coupled with a middling start this year, some in New York are starting to wonder about his job security<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Desperate general managers have a propensity to make big, risky trades<\/a> in an attempt to save their jobs, something Drury literally did in January when he acquired Miller.<\/p>\n

That wasn\u2019t the only deal Drury struck with Patrik Allvin and Jim Rutherford last season, as the team also acquired Carson Soucy in exchange for a third-round draft pick.<\/p>\n

In fact, Drury has made five trades with the Canucks since becoming general manager back in 2021. That makes the Canucks the team he\u2019s traded with the most in his time as Rangers GM.<\/p>\n

There could be motivation to save his job and squeeze the most out of an aging core. There\u2019s also the added benefit of not letting Hughes join their division rivals in New Jersey.<\/p>\n

Could Drury fall in love with the idea of having a team that employs both Adam Fox and Hughes on defence, coupled with the fact that they play in front of one of the NHL\u2019s best goaltenders?<\/p>\n

What could the Rangers give up?<\/p>\n

The issue with the Canucks trying to strike a deal with the Rangers is that New York doesn\u2019t really have the pieces the Canucks want.<\/p>\n

That is, they don\u2019t have many young pieces who can help the team stay competitive<\/a> now, and they don\u2019t have a ton of young centre depth.<\/p>\n

The Rangers\u2019 prospect pool isn\u2019t deep. Gabe Perreault is one of their best assets, and the undersized right winger is similar to Jonathan Lekkerim\u00e4ki. Perreault would be considered more of a playmaker than Lekkerim\u00e4ki, although the Rangers prospect does have 10 goals in 17 AHL games this season.<\/p>\n

They also have prospects such as Malcom Spence and Brennan Othman, who project as middle-six wingers, along with defencemen such as Surrey, B.C. native E.J. Emery and Scott Morrow.<\/p>\n

Of course, there\u2019s also the Canucks\u2019 organizational ties to Alexis Lafreni\u00e8re.<\/p>\n

The former first-overall pick in 2020 has continued to underwhelm after a breakout 28-goal, 57-point season in the 2023-24 campaign. The 24-year-old has seven goals and 17 points in 31 games this year.<\/p>\n

Because of his ties to the Canucks, as assistant GM Emilie Castonguay was formerly his agent, it\u2019s easy enough to envision the Canucks having some interest. His cap hit of $7.45 million also closely matches Hughes\u2019 cap hit of $7.85 million, which matters considering both teams are near the salary cap ceiling.<\/p>\n

For the Canucks, however, the strategy is clear. They need to get as many bidders as possible on Hughes, and having two teams from the same division trying to outbid each other would be an even better scenario.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Most Vancouver Canucks fans are expecting Quinn Hughes to join the New Jersey Devils at some point. But,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":336116,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-336115","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336115","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=336115"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/336115\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/336116"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=336115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=336115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=336115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}