Call it the end of an era. Call it the inevitable having come to pass.

Quinn Hughes is a Vancouver Canuck no longer. And now, we’re left to wonder what that means.

To be clear, there was no scenario in which the Canucks ‘won’ a Hughes trade. The old adage goes that the team that gets the best player back in a trade wins that trade, and Hughes is one of the best players in the world. Unless the package included Nathan MacKinnon or Connor McDavid or Cale Makar, there was just no ‘coming out on top’ available here.

That said…

The Hughes trade return IS absolutely massive. Vancouver fans were likely braced for disappointment, and while trading Hughes is a disappointing outcome in any scenario, the trade return is still a lot better than most anticipated.

Zeev Buium is the centrepiece. The Athletic ranked the 20-year-old as the eighth-best under-23 league-affiliated player heading into the season, and the second-best under-23 defender after, fittingly enough, Luke Hughes. He put up six points in seven games at the latest WJC, and is up to 14 points in 31 games as an NHL rookie. Buium is about as blue-chip as a prospect gets, and probably belongs in whatever tier comes higher than that.

Marco Rossi is a player the Canucks have been after for a while. The 24-year-old is already the 2C the team has been looking for, and has the potential to be more than that. He scored 60 points in 82 games as an NHL sophomore, and is on pace for 63 this season across a full 82-game schedule. All this, after starting his career behind the eight-ball due to an extremely dangerous bout with Covid. The Wild’s previous ask for Rossi was Arturs Silovs, Aatu Räty, and the 15^th overall pick, just to ballpark his general value – and that was before he signed a reasonable three-year, $5 million AAV extension.

Liam Ohgren is easily the least exciting of the three players acquired, but don’t discount him. The 19th overall pick in the 2022 Entry Draft is still just 21 years old, and has lots of potential left in him. Sure, he’s only achieved seven points in 46 NHL games thus far, but he’s too young to make any conclusions about that. Think instead about what Ohgren needed to do in order to get such an opportunity with the Wild at such an age. Which is score 37 points in 41 games as an AHL rookie last year, all the while displaying an excellent work ethic and future leadership qualities.

The sweetener in all this, meanwhile, is an unprotected 2026 first round pick. Given that the Wild are now even more likely to finish within the top-three of the Central Division, that’s probably a pick ranked anywhere between 20^th overall and 32^nd…but it’s a first round pick all the same, and it will remain a first round pick with no conditions.

The return, in other words, contains four former or future first round picks, but even that isn’t quite speaking to its value, given the special qualities of Buium or the NHL track record of Rossi.

So, let’s give this trade value some historical context.

We need a starting point, so we’re going to start with what is probably the biggest trade of all-time.

The 1992 Eric Lindros trade is still the gold standard for big deals. And, no, the Hughes trade doesn’t quite touch it. Peter Forsberg may not have popped yet as a prospect at that point, but he was still a recent sixth overall pick. Mike Ricci was a recent fourth overall pick. Ron Hextall, Steve Duchesne, and Chris Simon all had lengthy, successful NHL careers ahead of them. And then there’s two first round picks included, and what at the time was a boatload of cash.

There will probably never be another trade like the Lindros trade. But the Hughes trade has the chance to be the most significant trade return since.

Let’s look at some other ‘contenders’ to ensure we can put in in the proper context.

We’re going to look at a few key comparables from previous decades, starting with the two most recent Norris Trophy winners to be traded anywhere near to their prime: Chris Pronger and Erik Karlsson.

The 2005 trade that sent Pronger from St. Louis to Edmonton now looks like a shockingly low return. The 31-year-old Pronger was five years removed from his Hart and Norris Trophies, but still an NHL All-Star and a dominant presence on the ice. He was traded for a younger top-pairing defender who had also been a Canadian Olympian in 2002 in Eric Brewer, and former 2001 first and second rounders in Jeff Woywitka and Doug Lynch, respectively, who never panned out. With all due respect to Brewer, this trade return isn’t even close to the Hughes return, but there is another Pronger trade to consider.

The 2006 trade that sent Pronger from Edmonton to Anaheim is a lot more of what we’re looking for. That return included Joffrey Lupul, a recent seventh overall pick who had a strong NHL start, Ladislav Smid, a recent ninth overall pick, and then three draft picks on top of all that.

This might be the closest we come to a direct comparable, but the value still probably favours the Canucks’ offer. Buium is the top-ranked young player of the bunch, and a significantly better prospect that was Smid, and Rossi seems like he has a better track record as a young NHL forward than did Lupul. The picks probably add up to pretty close to the value of the pick the Canucks got back and Ohgren put together.

There is at least one more Norris-winner trade worth comparing, too.

Unlike Pronger, Karlsson was still in his 20s and still in his prime when the Senators traded him in 2018, and they got an absolute haul back. Josh Norris was the Sharks’ most recent first rounder at 19^th overall in 2017, and he’s turned into a top-six centre despite injuries. Chris Tierney was an established young 3C. Dylan DeMelo was a young right-shooting defender who would blossom into a top-four talent. Rudolf Balcers was a meh prospect.

But it was that first round pick that really gave this deal its value. The Sharks chose not to give up their 2019 pick, instead opting for the 2020, which proved a huge mistake as they tanked in the standings and wound up with the third overall pick. The Senators used that pick on Tim Stutzle, their franchise centre.

Given how Stutzle turned out, one could certainly argue that this trade held more value for the Senators than the Hughes trade might end up holding for the Canucks. But even if that’s true, the Sharks never meant to trade a pick that high, so this is more of an ‘oopsie’ than an honest trade return.

While we’re on the topic of historical deals, we might as well stop off at some of the most significant in Canucks history.

The last time the Canucks had to trade a franchise player still in their prime was when they sent Pavel Bure to Florida in 1999. The key piece back here was obviously Ed Jovanovski, who had been selected at first overall in 1994 and won the 1996 Calder Trophy, but who had plateaued a bit since. Kevin Weekes was a young goalie thought to perhaps have starter potential. Mike Brown was the 20^th overall pick in 1997, but he never really panned out, nor did Nathan Smith, the player the Canucks selected with the 2000 first rounder. Dave Gagner was a veteran in his last NHL season.

This trade held the promise of some potential, but everyone except for Jovanovski wound up being largely disappointing. Thankfully, the next major trade with the Panthers would pay greater dividends.

The trade that brought Roberto Luongo to Vancouver in 2006 felt like good value at the time, and that’s only more true in the retrospective. Todd Bertuzzi was a shell of his former self at that point, and would only wind up playing seven games for the Panthers before being moved again. Bryan Allen was the fourth overall pick in 1998, but had already developed into a fairly mundane, average NHL defender by this point. Alex Auld was a solid backup. That’s not a lot at all to pay for the best goaltender in the world, and it’s a whole lot less than the Canucks just got back for Hughes. 

None of our historical trades have really stacked up, unless we count the Sharks/Senators trade as having included Tim Stutzle from the get-go, or unless we go all the way back to The Big E. What about some of the more recent trades of true NHL superstars?

The 2021 Jack Eichel trade came under some very specific circumstances. At the time, Eichel had not played in a good long while due to a neck injury and a subsequent dispute with the Sabres about how to treat it. That said, the Sabres did decent – but still well behind the Hughes return – to bring in a young forward on the cusp of a breakout in Alex Tuch, a former first rounder in Krebs, and two valuable picks. And that said, the Golden Knights still did better in bringing in a true 1C who has since led them to a Stanley Cup.

It’s hard to judge this 2022 trade retroactively, because it’s turned out so poorly. It’s also so different from the Hughes trade as to make comparison impossible. This was intended to be a ‘one superstar for two stars’ sort of deal, but the Flames have tanked ever since, and Florida has won two consecutive Stanley Cups. Suffice it to say that Calgary probably would have been better off to seek a future-based package for Tkachuk, just like the Canucks have done.

Rantanen was traded twice last year, and both times as a pending UFA, which should give him less overall value that Hughes, who has a year-and-a-half remaining on his contract. The first return for Rantanen included a premier NHL forward in Martin Necas (with one-and-a-half years of contract himself), a decent young forward, and two picks. Given that Colorado has since got Necas under contract on an extension, the return seems fair, if a little light for a true NHL superstar at 50%.

The second Rantanen trade is a lot more directly comparable to the Hughes trade because it was far more future-focused. Logan Stankoven was a recent second rounder who had since increased his stock as an NHL prospect, and who has since proven himself a probable long-term top-six centre. The conditions on the first round picks are yet to be determined, but they’re going to be two first round picks of some variety eventually. This trade may have more pieces than the Hughes deal, but none of those pieces are near as valuable as either Buium or Rossi. The return the Canucks got back is of a far higher quality, if not quantity, than all of these recent comparables.