Over the course of nine years in Minnesota, defenseman Ryan Suter played 656 regular-season games in a Wild uniform. Among blueliners who played here, he holds the franchise record for games with three assists. He did it it five times.
On Thursday, Wild defenseman Quinn Hughes set up three of Minnesota’s four goals, including the overtime winner as they beat Detroit 4-3. It was the fourth time Hughes has recorded a trio of assists in a game for the Wild.
Minnesota Wild defenseman Quinn Hughes, left, skates with the puck as Detroit Red Wings left wing James van Riemsdyk (21) defends during the first period of an NHL hockey game Thursday, Jan. 22, 2026, in St. Paul, Minn. (AP Photo/Matt Krohn)
And he has been here for roughly five weeks.
By now, every Wild fan and every opponent scouting Minnesota has seen how it works: Hughes enters the offensive zone with the puck, often starting up the side wall, and draws the attention of an opposing forward. That’s when Hughes stops abruptly, spins away from the challenger while still solidly in possession of the puck and heads back toward the blue line to find either open ice or a teammate who is in position to shoot.
Everybody knows it’s coming, and nobody has, as of yet, found a way to stop it.
“Everyone see this,” said Kirill Kaprizov, the beneficiary of Hughes’ assists on both of the Russian’s goals versus Detroit. “He’s a great skater and helps so much everywhere, especially when we have (the) puck and he move around. Start attack first, go on offense; give you more space and stuff like that.”
Thursday night was Hughes’ 20th game in Minnesota since the mid-December blockbuster trade that brought him east from Vancouver. At his current pace, he will own the franchise mark for three-assist games before he heads to Italy to play for Team USA in the Milan Cortina Olympics next month.
For Hughes, the patented spin move is a result of natural talent and relentless practice, a rare ability to curl away from danger while maintaining possession. It is a high-risk, high-reward move, as losing the puck could spring an opponent on a breakaway. Those moments are rare.
“I feel like that’s kind of my MO a little bit. It’s things I work on in the summer, and it’s a work in progress,” Hughes said Thursday, after the Wild won at home for the first time in more than a month. “This is my seventh year in the league, so it’s obviously, you know, (I) continue to get better and better.”
Amid the normal pregame crush of Canadian media when the Wild visited Toronto earlier in the week, a reporter in the pregame scrum asked Hughes about his transition to a new team, new city and a new country. As has been his mantra in Minnesota since arriving and scoring a goal in a 6-2 home win over Boston on Dec. 14, Hughes hinted that there is even better stuff coming as he develops more and more familiarity with with defensive partner Brock Faber, and forwards like Kaprizov and Mats Zuccarello.
“You just don’t know anyone; like if you’re somewhere and you have a new job. If you’re working for a company for seven years and then you go to a new company, you don’t know anyone,” Hughes said. “I feel like I’m getting to my game now.”
Hughes also admitted that Minnesota was a team he didn’t like playing against during his time with the Canucks due to Minnesota’s coaching, skill, and “hard” game. For his new teammates, not having to try and foil Hughes’ spin moves is just another benefit of having the defenseman wearing green and red now.
“For other forwards, it’s probably tough,” Kaprizov said, after a 20-game sample watching myriad opponents challenge Hughes and fail. “Yeah, it’s probably tough. I don’t remember if he did against me like that, but it looks tough.”
With Hughes in the lineup, the Wild are 11-5-4, and after Thursday’s win were in a three-way tie with the Red Wings and Hurricanes for the second-most points in the NHL (67).
Acquiring Hughes wasn’t cheap; general manager Bill Guerin sent the Canucks forward Marco Rossi and Liam Ohgren, defenseman Zeem Buium and a first-round pick in this summer’s draft.
So far, it’s been a bargain.
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