Quinn Hughes has turned a mid-December arrival into one of the Minnesota Wild’s defining stories, and on April 2 he added the last line to it. The 26-year-old defenseman picked up an assist in the third period against Vancouver as the Wild clinched a playoff berth, reached 46 assists in 43 games with Minnesota and became the fastest player in franchise history to get to 50 points.
It also put Hughes one point from the Wild record for most points by a defenseman in a single season. He finished the night with 4-46=50, breaking Ryan Suter’s mark for assists by a Minnesota defenseman and doing it in less than a full season’s worth of games. Suter had 45 assists in 78 games in 2017-18.
That kind of production was already hard to miss by the time Minnesota met Boston on Dec. 14 for Hughes’ debut at Grand Casino Arena. Fans greeted him with a loud ovation during warm-ups, then watched him score 54 seconds into the third period of a 6-2 win. He became the 32nd player and the sixth defenseman to score in his Wild debut. Afterward, Hughes called the moment special and said he was not expecting that kind of reception, though he knew it was a hockey market.
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The Wild traded for Hughes from Vancouver in mid-December after already building momentum with an 11-1-2 November. That set up a stretch in which he became one of the league’s most productive passers and quickly fit into a team already climbing. Filip Gustavsson said on Feb. 2, after an overtime win over Montreal, that Minnesota got a little bit more swagger when Hughes arrived. Coach John Hynes also saw him as a leadership presence because he had been a captain before coming over.
Hughes said the transition was not easy after spending so long in one place, but he felt January was a key month for getting acclimated and that everything in February was unbelievable. He said he felt he was playing as well as he could then and at the Olympics, and added that he was looking forward to playoff hockey in Minnesota. The next benchmark is simple: one more point would give him the Wild’s single-season record for points by a defenseman, and the way he has gone since arriving, that now feels like the story still waiting to be finished.
