The Vancouver Canucks have gone without a team captain since they traded Bo Horvat to the New York Islanders midway through the 2022–23 season.
It remains to be seen whether the Canucks will fill that void at any point leading up to the 2023–24 campaign, but that hasn’t stopped fans from speculating whether the team will tap J.T. Miller, Elias Pettersson, Quinn Hughes, or somebody else to wear the C.
Hughes, who has firmly established himself as one of the National Hockey League’s top defencemen over his four full seasons with the Canucks, has emerged as many fans’ preferred choice to lead the team going forward.
The 23-year-old rearguard is under contract for four more seasons at a bargain $7.85 million cap hit. Hughes also spent the 2022–23 season as one of the Canucks’ full-time alternate captains.
Daily Hive‘s Rob Williams caught up with Hughes at a promotional event in Vancouver on Friday and asked whether he’d be ready to take a greater leadership role — and even assume the captaincy — with the Canucks in 2023–24.
“I’m very comfortable,” Hughes told Williams. “I’ve had a lot of great mentors and people around me… people I could learn [from] and lean off of. [What] a lot of people don’t know about me is I grew up in Toronto pretty much, from when I was seven to 15. Before even coming to Van my rookie year, I kind of knew what I was getting myself into, in a Canadian market.
“It’s an honour to play here, with the fans so passionate,” Hughes added. “If [being named captain] ever happened, it’d be an honour as well.”
Hughes set career highs with 69 assists and 76 points in 78 games with the Canucks in the 2022–23 season, although he was unable to help the team qualify for the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
The Canucks will roll into the 2023–24 season with a similar lineup to the one they deployed in 2022–23, albeit with a healthy Filip Hronek on defence and new acquisitions Teddy Blueger, Pius Suter, Ian Cole, and Carson Soucy in the fold.
We’ll have to wait and see whether the Canucks do name a captain before they open their season against the Edmonton Oilers at Rogers Arena on October 11.
