Bruce Boudreau doesn’t want Vancouver fans turning their frustration toward Quinn Hughes.
As Hughes gets set to return to Rogers Arena on Sunday night, the coach who helped revive the Canucks in 2021 and 2022 had a blunt message for the crowd.
“I hope they don’t boo,” Boudreau told Postmedia this week.
Boudreau’s view is that Hughes always handled himself like a player trying to do right by the organization that drafted him. In his eyes, the defenceman showed up, gave everything he had and tried to help the team win.
If fans are still carrying anger about how things ended, Boudreau suggested the real target should be elsewhere. He said blame Jim Rutherford, the man who fired Boudreau and traded Hughes after it became clear the captain and best defenceman in team history wasn’t going to remain beyond his current contract.
“He just did his job,” Boudreau said of Hughes.
Boudreau arrived in December 2021 with the Canucks stumbling badly out of the gate, and the change behind the bench sparked an immediate turnaround. Vancouver won its first seven games under him, though that run was interrupted by the COVID outbreak.
That stretch helped ignite a late-season push that nearly carried the club into the playoffs, and Hughes was a major part of it. Boudreau said the response from the team and the fans during that surge meant a lot to him.
The following season, though, Rutherford made it clear Boudreau was not the coach he wanted for the long term. Boudreau said the president let that become obvious quickly.
“He’d ask you how you were,” the coach recalled. “He was just a veteran guy already, who was respected.” A veteran guy - at just 22 years old.
In Other News...
Senators Suddenly Face A Bigger Early Test Than The Standings Show
The early-season picture in Ottawa has become a little more complicated than the standings alone might suggest. The Senators are working through an injury pileup that includes captain Thomas Chabot on a short-term absence with an upper-body injury, while several other players have already come off injured reserve and back into the lineup, giving the club at least some relief as it tries to keep its footing.
The biggest concern, though, is in goal, where Linus Ullmark is now part of the mix on injured reserve after being expected to miss at least the next stretch of games. For a team still trying to settle into its rhythm, losing a starting goalie changes the tenor of the schedule quickly, especially with a few other absences still lingering and the group already being asked to absorb more early-season strain than it probably wanted this soon. [Read more 🡒]
Senators Just Opened A Roster Decision Fans Should Watch
The Senators have opened a roster decision worth watching by placing winger Kurtis MacDermid on waivers after he recovered from an upper-body injury. A veteran in the final year of his deal, MacDermid has logged 307 NHL games across nine seasons and has filled a familiar depth role in recent years, mostly serving as a fourth-line enforcer when called upon.
If he passes through unclaimed, Ottawa will have a straightforward path to send him to the AHL and create some room on the books. For a team still sorting out the edges of its roster, that kind of move is less about headlines than flexibility, and it gives the Senators another lever to pull as they continue shaping the back end of the lineup. [Read more 🡒]
Senators Have A Big Opening Against A Rangers Team Running Thin
The Senators head into their matchup with the Rangers facing a familiar kind of early-season test, one that could tell them a lot about where the lineup stands after a few tweaks. Andreas Burakovsky is back in the fourth-line rotation, and captain Thomas Chabot was on the ice in a yellow non-contact jersey, a reminder that Ottawa is still managing some moving parts as it gets ready for a division opponent.
New York is dealing with its own issues, and the crease situation alone changes the feel of the game for Ottawa. With both Igor Shesterkin and Jonathan Quick unavailable, the Rangers are expected to turn to Dylan Garand or Spencer Martin, which gives the Senators a chance to press an opening against a thin lineup and make their depth count in a game that could tilt quickly if they come out sharp. [Read more 🡒]