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Quinn Hughes just rubbed salt into the Canucks.

On December 12th, the Minnesota Wild shocked the hockey world by trading for defenseman Quinn Hughes.

The trade saw the Wild send quite the haul to acquire Hughes from the Vancouver Canucks. They sent Marco Rossi, Zeev Buium, Liam Ohgren, and a 2026 1st round pick in the deal. It was a massive price to pay, but that’s what it takes to bring in a player like Quinn Hughes.

Even though the Wild had to pay a pretty penny to acquire him, it didn’t mean he was automatically locked in for a long time. At the time of the trade, Quinn Hughes only had a season and a half left on his deal. Obviously, we’re in the offseason now, and Hughes only has one year left with the Wild.

The biggest priority for the Wild this offseason will be to extend Quinn Hughes, and they know that. Team owner Craig Leipold is quit confident in Minnesota’s ability to do so.

Quinn Hughes Gets Clear Message from Wild Owner Craig Leipold

Minnesota Wild owner Craig Leipold recently talked about extending Hughes, displaying major confidence that it will get done.

“First of all, Quinn Hughes is an extraordinary player and an extraordinary person. 

We had to give up a lot to get him in this past year. We are going to re-sign him. The question will be for how long. We would like to go as long as we could. He will probably want it to be a little shorter — shorter being maybe three years. We hopefully will end up at five, I don’t know, and the reason I can openly talk about this is that I’m not doing the negotiating.”

Even though he owns the franchise, Leipold can’t tell the future. Obviously, the Wild are going to do everything they can to keep Quinn Hughes in the State of Hockey. It’s most likely that it will happen, but no one predicted that Hughes would end up in Minnesota to begin with either.

Minnesota Wild Aren’t Larkin’s Preferred Destination; It’s Dallas

On Sportsnet, Nick Kypreos reported that Larkin’s preferred destination isn’t the Minnesota Wild. Instead, it’s actually the Dallas Stars.

Shawn Sinclair of NHLTradeRumors.com hinted at what a potential trade package could look like from Dallas for Larkin.

“As for potential return for Larkin from Dallas, Roope Hintz stands out as someone the Red Wings would have interest in, but he owns a full no-movement clause. There’s also Mavrik Bourque, and Nils Lundqvist. Regardless of how this deal transpires, expect to see the Stars trade Ilya Lyubushkin this offseason as they need to free up cap space to extend restricted free-agent forward Jason Robertson.”

It’s a bit of an annoyance, but Larkin would’ve commanded an absolute haul. Young Minnesota Wild prospects like Danila Yurov and Charlie Stramel would be expected to be a part of a trade package. To be fair, the Wild aren’t out of the race yet.

However, hearing that he wants to go to Dallas of all teams can really take the wind out of your sails as a Wild fan.