Quinn Hughes’ next contract has become one of the offseason’s most closely watched storylines, and the Minnesota Wild may already be working against the clock.
Hughes, the defenseman Minnesota acquired in a trade last season, is now heading into the final year of his six-year, $47.1 million deal. The Wild have made clear they want to keep him, but with the season opener approaching and less than a month left before then, the questions around his future aren’t going away.
On the “Worst Seats in the House” podcast, NHL insider Michael Russo said the team appears to have drawn a line in the sand.
“I think the Wild are still looking at opening night as sort of their deadline; I think the Wild thought this would be an easier negotiation than Kirill (Kaprizov) was last year,” Russo said.
Kaprizov ultimately signed an eight-year, $136 million extension with Minnesota on September 30, 2025, a deal that at the time set the NHL record for highest average annual value.
Minnesota expected Hughes’ talks to move quickly, but the market has changed fast around them. A wave of massive contracts has reset the financial bar across the league.
That shift was part of the discussion for Jeff Marek, who appeared on “The Sheet” and said the Hughes number is likely to land between two of the market’s biggest recent deals.
“(Quinn Hughes' next contract) is gonna be probably somewhere in between Macklin Celebrini and Cale Makar; we all strongly suspect,” he said.
Philadelphia’s $18 million AAV offer sheet for Leo Carlsson helped trigger the latest spending spree, and since then the numbers have only climbed. San Jose’s Macklin Celebrini signed a five-year deal with an $18.8 million AAV, and Cale Makar followed with an eight-year extension worth $20.4 million AAV with the Colorado Avalanche.
Of the two, Makar’s deal figures to matter more in Hughes’ negotiations because of the position and profile they share.
For the Wild, the goal is simple: get it done before opening night. There’s also the reality that if they don’t, New Jersey’s interest keeps the pressure on, with the possibility of Hughes walking away for nothing still hanging over the situation.
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