Wild owner makes Quinn Hughes contract promise, but there’s a catch

The Minnesota Wild made the biggest trade of the 2025-26 NHL season, picking up Quinn Hughes from the Vancouver Canucks. Now, the Norris Trophy finalist is headed into the last year of his contract after a half-season in Minnesota. Wild owner Craig Leipold spoke with NHL.com about the future of Hughes in Minnesota and what his next contract will look like.

“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,” Leipold said.

Hughes is set to be an unrestricted free agent on July 1, 2027, but the Wild won’t let that happen. On the other hand, Hughes wants to hit the open market as much as possible in his prime. That may lead the defenseman to sign a short-term contract in Minnesota and hit free agency in his early 30s.

Wild are in a salary cap crunch

This season, the Wild have the most expensive contract of the salary cap era on their books. Kirill Kaprizov signed a deal worth $17 million per year last fall, which begins on July 1. That complicates the Wild’s salary cap situation moving forward, and makes this Hughes deal fascinating.

According to PuckPedia, the Wild have over $9.5 million in cap space for this summer, but many of their depth forwards remain unsigned. Once they bring back Bobby Brink, fill out their bottom six, and give Jesper Wallstedt a contract extension, they are going to have less money next year. But Hughes will get his money; it just depends on how long the contract will be.

If Hughes signs a three-year contract extension, he would hit unrestricted free agency at the same time as his brother, New Jersey Devils forward Jack Hughes. It was Jack who scored the game-winning overtime winner for Team USA in the gold medal game, and now a lot of those USA teammates want to play together in the NHL. Could the Hughes brothers be playing the long game to end up playing together?

The Wild will try to keep Quinn Hughes for as long as they can on this next contract. And maybe the Hughes brothers will unite in Minnesota one day.

The post Wild owner makes Quinn Hughes contract promise, but there’s a catch appeared first on ClutchPoints.