Way-Too-Early Free-Agent Landing Spots for Canucks Captain Quinn Hughes

What will you be doing in the summer of 2027? If you've got an answer for this, congratulations because you might be further ahead in your plans than the Vancouver Canucks when it comes to team captain Quinn Hughes.

It's then that the 2024 Norris Trophy winner could become an unrestricted free agent and almost certainly will be in high demand around the NHL. By then, the salary cap's upper limit will be well over $100 million, and much cash will be splashed for the point-scoring defenseman.

We're aware that the 25-year-old has two more seasons beyond this one before potentially reaching free agency and it's early to start thinking about where he might land next, but has that ever stopped us before?

Even though every team in the NHL would want to line up for the chance to add him to their roster, we've cut down the field to make things more interesting. Let us know in the comments how much you agree or disagree with our takes.

If you didn't think we were going to mention the New Jersey Devils first, you need another cup of coffee.

The possibility of having all three Hughes brothers on the same team is an opportunity New Jersey would run at light speed to make happen. It's already got a brilliant offensive force in Jack Hughes, while Luke Hughes is becoming just as much of a puck-moving and scoring monster as Quinn has been in Vancouver.

Thinking of a defense pairing of Luke and Quinn Hughes together is enough to give every team in the Eastern Conference nightmares. Trying to contain them while they help spring and support the attack is the kind of thing fans of exciting, high-paced hockey want to see.

Obviously, the stories would write themselves and the uniqueness of having the three brothers together on the same roster would generate the kind of attention that would make a lot of fans get really annoyed.

However, having the modern-day version of the Stastny, Sutter or Staal brothers teaming up together is a rare occurrence and worthy of celebration. And if the Devils have the chance to make it happen, they'll go all out to do it.

Let's be real here: If the Vancouver Canucks allow Quinn Hughes to even get a whiff of free agency come 2027, it's a colossal failure of management one way or another.

Either the Canucks will have gotten down in such a way that Hughes will want to leave or they've played some version of hardball with him that turns the relationship between the two parties sour.

We know that after the J.T. Miller trade and the drama surrounding Elias Pettersson got people talking about whether Vancouver was going to fire up some sort of rebuild on the fly despite being in the playoff race and a year removed from being one of the best teams in the NHL. And you wonder why Canucks fans get mad so easily.

Hughes should be a Canuck for life. He's been everything as advertised when they drafted him and more, and the fact that he's the team captain only hammers home how good he's been. But if things go sideways in a real bad way there...whew, buddy.

When you think of how anxious people have become about where the Chicago Blackhawks are now and how Connor Bedard is developing, you know GM Kyle Davidson is under a massive amount of pressure to get the team back to the playoffs as soon as possible.

No matter where Chicago is standings-wise in 2027 and regardless of what's going on with Bedard, if it has the opportunity to add Quinn Hughes to the roster, it should do everything it can to make it happen.

The rise in the salary cap will more than allow the Blackhawks to afford the kind of money it would take to sign Hughes, and that's even keeping in mind how much Bedard will sign for when he's due for an extension a year from now.

One area Chicago will need more of a boost in by summer 2027 is defense. Seth Jones will be going into the final year on his contract, as will Alex Vlasic. It will have Kevin Korchinski in the NHL full-time well before then, and Artyom Levshunov should be as well.

Having young guys on defense creates a learning curve, but adding Hughes to that group would alleviate a lot of those concerns all while making Chicago a more dangerous team.

One of the more fascinating teams down the road in the NHL will be the Montréal Canadiens, and thinking about them adding Quinn Hughes to their lineup in a couple of years is enough to give their rivals night terrors.

The Habs have a lot of talent up front with Patrik Laine, Nick Suzuki, Cole Caufield, Juraj Slafkovský, and they'll have another when Ivan Demidov comes to North America.

They've also got a burgeoning young star on the blue line in Lane Hutson. While the 20-year-old has been making fans think of him as the next Quinn Hughes, wouldn't it be even more fun having the real Quinn Hughes on the roster as well?

It's been exciting to see Hutson do what he's done this season as a rookie, but if you add Hughes to that group along with Kaiden Guhle, you've got a line that can move the puck fast all over the ice, control the pace of play and create offense at a level that would be difficult for opposing teams to contend with nightly.

It's an exhilarating thought if you're a Canadiens fan and a menacing one for fans of anyone else.

If the Vancouver Canucks are going to get into the rebuild business and potentially force Quinn Hughes to think about whether he wants to stick around for that, wouldn't it be better for him to jump on board with a team that will be poised to skyrocket up the standings coming out of their own rebuild like the San Jose Sharks?

Think about what Macklin Celebrini and Will Smith could look like in a couple of years up front for the Sharks. Factor in William Eklund and maybe add Quentin Musty to that mix.

Consider also defenseman Sam Dickinson who they got in the first round of last year's draft. Think about what goalie Yaroslav Askarov could be doing by then. Then there's whoever they take at the top of the 2025 draft, too. Imagine adding Hughes to that group as the veteran leader to push them over the top, too.

Everything the Sharks have done under GM Mike Grier to this point has looked smart, and the way they've progressed with their rebuild has a lot of us nodding our heads because you can see where they're headed.

Bringing Quinn Hughes aboard with that group would be a lot of fun and vault them up the standings.

For two years, Quinn Hughes dominated at the University of Michigan, and he could return to the state as the guy who can push the Detroit Red Wings to another level in two years' time

We've seen the best of the Red Wings the past month or so since Todd McLellan came on board to coach them, but the players they've had in place are all showing why there's a reason for excitement.

Dylan Larkin, Lucas Raymond and Alex DeBrincat are lighting it up at forward, while Moritz Seider and Simon Edvinsson are taking care of things on the blue line.

If there's an area Detroit could stand to have more of a puck-moving presence, it's on defense. And bringing Quinn Hughes back to Michigan to lead its attack from the back and quarterback its power play would be thrilling.

Seider's been a solid all-around defenseman and 6'6" Edvinsson has been adept all-around as well.

The Wings have Axel Sandin-Pellikka in the pipeline as their offensive dynamo on defense, but if Detroit gets back to the playoffs soon, having a veteran superstar like Hughes to take them to another level would be the kind of move that would make competition in the Atlantic Division that much more difficult.

If there's any team in the NHL whose eyes lit up brighter than the sun when the league announced the massive boosts to the salary-cap upper limit in years to come, it was the Vegas Golden Knights.

They have never been afraid to spend like mad being allowed to do so and not have to play around with the loopholes to do so being able to splash cash all over the place. What should really scare them is how they could have even more money to spend on Quinn Hughes if he hits free agency in summer 2027.

His potential unrestricted free agency coincides with the end of Alex Pietrangelo and Mark Stone's contracts with the Golden Knights and using that freed up $17.5 million in cap hits to help sign Hughes is the exact kind of timing every team would love to have when it comes to potential huge signings.

Of course, Vegas will have to figure out what to pay Jack Eichel a year before that potential Hughes free agency and that's not likely to be a small sum, but since when has Vegas management seemed to balk at paying big money to the best players?

If nothing else, Vancouver should get Hughes signed to an extension to best try to prevent this seeming inevitability.