As much fun as it was to imagine the WWE experience that Ottawa Senators fans treated Brady Tkachuk being replicated in Vancouver for Quinn Hughes big return in a 4-2 win for the Minnesota Wild on Sunday night, it was never going to play out that way. To continue the wrestling metaphor, Brady Tkachuk is the kind of obnoxious heel who really leans into the gimmick. If you boo him, he will smile right back at you and then try to run your best player into the boards, drinking in the boos, and furiously wondering how to spell your team’s name.

Quinn Hughes’ gimmick is another beast entirely. His haunting looks into the void while sitting on the bench became a favourite pastime for Vancouver Canucks fans, often leaving people wondering what was going on behind those eyes. If Nathan Fielder ever needed a second attempt at an Oscar-nominated documentary, he probably needs look no further than his own backyard.

A lot of things can be true about Quinn’s eventual journey toward “just going out to grab a carton of milk, kids, be right back” that ended his almost seven-year run here. Who failed who and to what extent will be debated until the end of time, if we’re being honest with each other.

What we do know is that Quinn Hughes tends to be a man of few words, which is why I think it ends up being a situation where all you can do is fill in the blanks as best you can about what all went down. It’s the frog DNA of the hockey world: sometimes you just have to work with what you’ve got and forget worrying about if you should; you just focus on if you could.

Speaking from the safety of Seattle this past Saturday, it was almost amusing that Quinn Hughes spoke warmly about his time in Vancouver, in a way that probably would have made his initial departure more palatable to the team that drafted him. Why it took that long to provide basic lip service we might never know, but the effect of that politeness can only go so far at this point. If you want to leave a team in sports, very rarely will it be a clean break with your former fan base, but for whatever reason it felt like Hughes’ situation in Vancouver was made far messier than it ever needed to be for all involved. Whether it was old man Jim Rutherford waxing poetic on his porch about business best kept in-house, or whether it was Quinn Hughes retreating further into his shell and providing very little insight into everything, it felt like a scenario more suited for breaking news from TMZ when he was finally dealt to the Wild.

You almost got the sense Quinn Hughes was fearing the in-game tribute video, which, while displaying the highest level of skill we’ve ever seen from a defenceman in Canucks history, was also stark in the lack of team highs under his watch. I don’t say that to assign blame; he was clearly the Canucks best player for several years by a wide margin, but maybe that’s partly why his return to Vancouver lacked some of the venom Ottawa had saved up for Brady; Quinn didn’t leave a team on the rise, he didn’t quit a long-term contract, he simply left a team in a burning pile of rubble rather than rejoin it. Again, he didn’t cause the burning pile of rubble, but he had a front-row seat for it as the captain, something I think he’s never fully taken ownership of.

Fair or not, as captain, sometimes you just have to eat it for the fan base. If something fails under your watch, you just have to shoulder a bit of blame, and you’d be surprised at how much easier people can move on from it. Was it his fault Elias Pettersson and JT Miller had a generational blood feud that ended a locker room? No, of course not, but the fact remains that he was captain of one of the most dysfunctional rosters the league has seen in quite some time. Even as former teammates defended Quinn Hughes before the game on Sunday, it’s hard not to take that with a grain of salt when the entire pre-season was spent talking about how much better the team felt now that guys could just be themselves. That’s not saying Quinn being gone is the reason they can be themselves; rather, this all happened under his watch, so you know, he needs to just eat the loss. That’s all he had to do.

As captain, the ease with which you can state that you wish you had been able to do more to help the situation is quite an easy approach to take, but instead it just felt rather petulant. Checking out in media scrums, not taking your lumps (deserved or not) for leadership, and then explaining a year later that the last handful of games where it looked like you were checked out was because you were trying TOO hard, is just not going to land well with any fan base, really.

“What would you say your flaw is?”

“Sometimes I think I care TOO much, sir.”

The thing is, I know Quinn Hughes gave so much to this team when he was all in on it. We saw him in 2024 break his body in a Ryan Kesler way to try and win at all costs. At times it literally felt like he was the only guy on the ice for Vancouver, playing over half of the game. I would never doubt his effort level when he’s locked in, which is why it felt so jarring to see him give up on the puck in his last few games in a Canucks jersey. And hey, benefit of the doubt, maybe he was indeed dead tired, maybe he had no juice left to give, and the trade magically revitalized him for his first game with Minnesota. It’s still poor handling of it to talk about this a year later instead of in the moment.

I also think that’s where the high self-awareness of the fan base comes into play. The fans know the issue the owners and management have brought upon the team ever since the 2011 core died out. The fan base is the one that has been begging the team to do the very rebuild they are in the midst of way back in 2013, which is why I think it’s hard to get too mad at Quinn. The Hughes era represented another situation of not building up the right way and going for short-term gains. The cynical among us knew the window of a Canucks team winning under Quinn Hughes was never as open as it might have looked. Certainly not as open as 2024 might have got some people thinking. If Quinn Hughes had just been more open about everything, I think this would play out very differently.

Which is where people who stridently defend Quinn Hughes come into the fray. The team let him down, and not vice versa, which is true to a very large extent. Ownership should thank their lucky stars that Quinn Hughes’ inability to navigate a spotlight-heavy market has given them yet another shield to cower behind. And while I heavily side-eye the idea that Quinn Hughes would have stayed in Vancouver had he been given a good team to play with (incredibly heavy side eye, please make note of that, it’s so heavy it’s hurting), the mistakes the Rutherford era made are so impressively bad that it will take years to sort through the impact of it all.

Still, at the end of the day, Hughes deserved the boos. He left the team; by all rights, he’s the enemy now. Sometimes it doesn’t have to be deeper than “That dude wanted out, well eff that guy” in sports. Without emotion, sports is nothing. If you want the highs, you eat the lows, and all that. I think Canucks fans clapping politely to his tribute video while booing him was the perfect farewell to all of this.

Quinn’s biggest mistake from my end was accepting the captaincy from Vancouver. It’s hard to argue he isn’t in the running with Mark Messier for the worst captain of all time, which is something I never thought we’d say about any player, yet here we are.

The disconnect with the city and team turned into absolute garbage under Hughes, and the locker room culture seemingly rotted away. And while you can’t put all of that at his feet, as the captain he 100% has to wear some of it, or at the very least, call out what did go wrong. Stand up for yourself or the team, but at least choose one; a disappearing act never works well in a leadership role. There was always the vibe of “hey, I had nothing to do with this!” around his captaincy, which clearly doesn’t work in a hockey-mad market like Vancouver.

It just brings to the forefront that captains need to be selected with proper intention going forward. Don’t give your most skilled guy the C. Don’t use it as a way to try and keep a guy around. Give it to a player that has the skill set to both set the culture you want in the room (which, fair enough, we’re not in there; maybe Quinn brought exactly what they wanted in the locker room), and also, just as important, someone who can handle the media side of the game and embraces the city in Thomas Müller fashion, which helps keep the noise down to a minimum. The vibe of “we’re in this shit together” always feels more empowering than “hey don’t look at me.”

So while Quinn Hughes moves on and puts this game behind him, so too shall Vancouver and its fans. This game was big in that it came with ready-made emotion built into it. As we’ve seen already, that is a bit of a premium in a rebuilding year, so you enjoy what you can at this point.

As time fades and as careers end, I am sure people will come around to appreciating the skill Quinn Hughes brought to this team.

But until then, boo whoever you want and let’s recap this game, shall we?

After being thoroughly embarrassed by a Detroit Red Wings team that themselves got spanked 4-1 by the Calgary Flames Sunday night, Vancouver had a couple of reasons to come out of the gates hot in this one. You don’t get standing ovations for getting a shot on net against another bottom feeder without feeling some sort of way the next game, so it was no surprise that Quinn Hughes’ return saw one of the Canucks best opening periods of the season.

Drew O’Connor in particular looked real jazzed up in this game, as he gave the fans exactly what they wanted right at the start of the first period in the form of throwing Quinn Hughes onto the ice:

It would not surprise you to know that this was met with enthusiasm from the home crowd, and dare I say it, a bit of glee? I believe at one point a small child even clapped at this display of physicality.

Defensive Enthusiast Elias Pettersson was the next guy to drop the hammer, as he absolutely laid out Bobby Brink with a thundering check a shift later:

The Canucks have struggled with generating shots and offensive chances this season, and a lot of the time it’s because they just haven’t been able to bring the energy in the offensive zone. Whether it’s because they’re stuck in their own zone too much or just struggle to get the puck into the offensive zone, it’s been rare to see the Canucks dominate possession in the offensive zone.

Which means you don’t tend to see a lot of good looks on net from Manny Malhotra’s team, which is why it was noticeable in the opening frame that Defensively Minded Elias Pettersson was able to get this snipe off after some incredibly hard work from Drew O’Connor along the boards, and a smart pass from Abruptly Forward Elias Pettersson:

Of all the Canucks on the night, I felt that Drew O’Connor brought the right intensity to start this game. You could just tell he was locked in and ready to battle for every single loose puck he could find, which resulted in a good look on net from Filip Chytil:

Obviously, the Canucks can’t match the skill of other teams, so hard work is going to have to be their bread and butter. But this year it’s felt like that level of effort has been wildly inconsistent. Even in this game, after the first period, the Canucks folded after the Wild scored a couple of goals. Sure, the Canucks made it slightly interesting at the end of the game, but for a large majority of the night, the Canucks were a non-existent threat in the offensive zone.

Luke Schenn made note of it after the game that the team just seems to struggle when the other team scores. Ray Ferraro makes mention of it on air about how a team can’t wilt after being scored on, which is where the mental side of this season is going to come into play. It’s an uphill battle at the best of times when you can’t out-skill the other team, but you make your life twice as hard if you can’t find a way to not get caught in the swamp of sadness every time buddy on the other team goes top cheddar. I know it’s easier said than done, but that’s the task ahead of them.

As sad as it is, feeling sorry for yourself has never won a game of hockey in its life.

Look, I don’t want to kick Kevin Lankinen when he’s down, but you’d be forgiven for thinking this game might have been 10-1 had he been in net. When you randomly trip skating back into your net, you just kind of have to accept that the hockey gods actively want you to be in mental anguish for a while.

So while Kevin tries to figure out what he did to anger the gods, Leevi Meriläinen continues to be a perfectly cromulent goaltender for the Vancouver Canucks. My favourite part about his game is his willingness to frog-splash to the ice to take away the bottom of the net:

Leevi’s rebound control has also been on a higher level of existence than Lankinen’s, which is why you see stops like this on Joel Eriksson Ek, where the follow-up seems so incredibly boring:

Where’s the puck being punted into the middle of the ice? Where’s the puck rolling around the crease? We’re used to a certain level of excitement, not this dreaded efficiency, Leevi.

Later on in the first, Matt Boldy would fire a shot on net that Kirill Kaprizov would tip (deftly) onto net, only to find the dark, withholding embrace of iron:

Jokes on you, Kirill Kaprizov; you’d have to wait a little bit longer to score a goal.

I am going to assume this is a very excited person talking about Max Sasson hitting Quinn Hughes?

Yes, with a “He’s not signing” chant breaking out in Rogers Arena, Max Sasson was the next to toss Quinn Hughes through the air in a spirited game of human cornhole, once again bringing the fans to their feet:

It’s the small things in life, really.

My main worry was that the Wild would weather the storm of gentle rain from Vancouver and then settle into the game of hockey. Which, as the stats will tell you, skilled teams tend to have the edge.

With the initial burst of adrenaline neatly folded away in the corner, the Wild went to scoring on the power play in the form of Kirill Kaprizov converting a quick and tidy pass from Maxim Shabanov:

As with many of the goals scored against Vancouver, this one was due to a failed pick-up behind the defence. I feel like the peek-a-boo offence shouldn’t work in the NHL in that if you can’t directly see someone looking at you, they don’t exist in your world, but what can you do? Defensively On-Edge Elias Pettersson fails to account for Kaprizov sneaking in behind him and as a result can’t get a hold of his stick, leading to what many are describing as the easiest first period goal of the night.

I do want to give a shout-out to Drew O’Connor, however, for making a very good defensive play just moments before this goal. The Wild tried doing a back door tap-in, but Doc managed to control the stick of Eriksson Ek and box out his clear shooting lane, leading to a clearance:

I don’t know if they handed out first period MVPs for this game, but I had DOC down on my ballot for Vancouver.

I had Keith Ballard down for the Wild, but I fear my voting card might be out of date.

With the Canucks exhausted after being stuck in their own zone for over a minute, huffing on sedative inhalers to stay off the radar in DMZ, Jonathan Lekkerimäki made the fundamental mistake of being too cute with the puck.

What did he do, you ask? Did he take a selfie in a onesie with said puck? No, instead had a zone exit in front of him and, instead of taking it, he spun around and fired it at an exhausted Filip Chytil, who promptly turned it over to Bobby Brink, who promptly made everyone on the ice look rather foolish, as if they had never played a game of competitive hockey in their life:

You can see the vision from Prime Time; he senses there is a check near him, so if he spins and sends the puck to an incoming Chytil, Filip can race up the ice with speed.

The problem is everyone is very tired at this point, and they would rather take a nap than do all this hockey business. You can almost see Chytil’s soul leave his body when he turns and runs into Bobby Brink. All he can do at this point is point his stick in the general direction of the puck and pray things go his way, and my friends, it certainly did not.

Now, do all teams make mistakes? Of course they do; we know this. The problem is when you can’t afford to make a mistake because you aren’t a very good team and it’s hard to come back, but more importantly, because being scored on breaks you mentally in a way that normally only your mother could.

Do shoulders make a sound when they slump? We are finding out in real time this year.

The Canucks had very little pushback from this point onwards. You can almost sense they know that only a goal will really bring them back to life in a way Evanescence once sang about. This team doesn’t gain momentum by generating scoring chances; it feels like it’s goal-or-nothing.

And to their credit, Max Sasson and Brendan Gallagher helped set up Arshdeep Bains for a breakaway chance that maybe could have turned things around, only to be denied by Calvin Pickard:

That was a great pass from Gallagher for Bains to skate into, but yeah, there wasn’t a lot to write him about from the second period.

Hey, Mike was right, Leevi kept it under five, even if all 6’6″ of Michael McCarron tried to score a goal from the NHL circa 2013:

If that’s Dustin Byfuglien in his prime against Luongo, then you’re allowed to do that, but not here, sir. Not now.

Please know that the officials didn’t cost the Canucks this game.

But also please know it didn’t feel like their best effort? Maybe they mailed it in a little bit?

Because somehow they missed this high stick off of the draw (despite calling a penalty against Vancouver for this exact play earlier in the game):

Then gave this “ehhhhh I guess you could call it a penalty, but it feels dubious?” on Drew O’Connor for taking out Not Phil Ryan Hartman

I think DOC is trying to land a hit, but then Hartman cuts back and puts all his weight on one leg, so when Drew runs into him, clips his lone skate on the ice, and nudges his leg in the air, he lands the flawless triple salchow. I think because it looked like DOC was sweeping the leg, the official chose to follow All Valley rules; it just felt worse because they had missed a clear call moments earlier.

It hurt even worse for Canucks fans when Quinn Hughes would make it 3-0, scoring the 500th point of his career in the form of tapping in a power play rebound goal:

It’s yet another case of Vancouver Canucks assuming that what they can’t see simply doesn’t exist, which allows Quinn to float around behind the net and come out front untouched. Which, yeah, this tends to happen on power plays, and good players find ways to get open; that’s sort of how hockey works.

But it does tend to happen at a very high rate against Vancouver, which makes you question things.

We’re just asking questions here.

Fil Hronek’s terrible, bad, stinky season continued in this game (later Josh Allen pass aside), and while I know Quinn Hughes leaving the team affected everyone, it felt like he handled it better than anyone last year? Like, he was the Adam Foote whisperer where it felt like he was the one guy who kind of understood what Foote was doing?

This year, though, you could swap Brisebois and Hronek’s nameplates, and I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference. Hronek has just lost all aura of being a top d-man right now, and I am not sure why.

All I know is it feels like he’s overthinking the game right now, which probably happens when you lose 287 games in a row. If what you’re doing is leading to these losses, naturally you’re going to try and change things up, but sometimes the results can be ugly.

On this play, you can see Hronek shoulder-check and (presumably) realize he has no outlet on the boards. Yet he still reverses the puck to said boards, leading to Minnesota taking ownership of the puck. Vancouver gets the puck back, but now Hronek has stopped in front of his goalie, so he has no momentum, which means when he gets the puck, he’s starting from zero. As he tries to gain speed, he holds onto the puck too long and gets easily stripped of it, leading to a shot on net:

I have no doubt Hronek can return to form, but it’s clear it’s been a rough start to the year for him.

Quinn Hughes makes passing look so easy sometimes it makes me sick. On the Wild’s fourth goal, he skates into space and finds Kirill Kaprizov skating through the middle of the ice, which the Canucks seemingly decide, “Why bother covering that guy?”

The finish is clinical on an Alex Mogilny level, to the point that, yes, it too makes me sick.

The other angle does Vancouver no favours as it shows what it looks like when a team has mentally given up and been broken inside:

Jake DeBrusk does a little fly-by, then Brock sort of watches Kirill Kaprizov go for a spin, and then Zeev Buium and Forwardly In Your Face Elias Pettersson both come in from very wide angles, leaving the Wild superstar all the time in the world with their goaltender.

This was an ugly goal. Beautiful from Minnesota’s side of things, but devastatingly ugly for Vancouver. Rebuilding is about selling hope, and if your team looks checked out at the end of the biggest game of your season, that’s a hard sell to the fan base.

The good news is the Canucks found a bit of mojo when they finally scored a goal off of a brilliant, albeit fortuitous, pass from Fil Hronek to Max Sasson for the breakaway:

Much like Pervitin once helped fuel Germany’s start to World War Two, scoring goals seems to be the only way to get the Canucks going. In a game in which beating Quinn Hughes was probably never really on the table, the fanbase wanted at least the IDEA they could win, which usually requires, you know, goals.

And that’s a great pass from Hronek that juuuuust evades a Wild stick, and after that Max Sasson does what he does best: score goals that sometimes get credited to a falling Arshdeep Bains on home ice.

In this case, though, he simply goes five-hole, and the game that felt out of reach suddenly felt…well, out of reach, but at least people got to cheer and chant “We want the Cup!” which is just the sort of dark humour that fuels our souls here in Vancouver.

Blake Coleman would try and stem this pushback when he tried his version of a 2009 Byfuglien goal, only for it to be called off for being wildly illegal:

Leevi would be called into action yet again, this time being forced to make two saves off of a breakaway after the Canucks began aggressively pushing up for offence late in the game:

All of which led to Brock Boeser, that post-game speech after the Detroit game hanging over his head like a black cloud, the one about the team having to play better and everyone needs to get their shit in order, a man who had spent the night being largely invisible at best, and actively helping the loss at worst in watching the fourth goal against, finally breaking through:

Strong rushes with determination have not been in the Canucks wheelhouse this season, which makes it all the more frustrating when it keeps working when they do manage to pull it off. Something about generating high-danger looks on net with speed leads to goals or something? I haven’t fully worked out the math yet, but there is something there.

All in all, that’s a terrific play from the last two remaining members of the Lotto Line, a line that was so good and scored so often they actually earned a nickname. It’s nice when they can reach into their bag of tricks and pull out some of the classics.

And while the Canucks didn’t win the game, at least they ended the night with some excitement? Brock Boeser got another really good look on net with time winding down, but was thwarted by the Pickard:

And thus ended the night Quinn Hughes came back.

The first period was really good for Vancouver, and they showed some pushback to end the third period, but the elephant in the room of “how badly is this losing streak messing with their mentals” remains the largest talking point.

On to the Ducks next.