Canucks' trade of Quinn Hughes highlights team's failure 

The writing has been on the wall for a few months now regarding a potential Quinn Hughes trade for the Vancouver Canucks. In recent weeks it started to feel inevitable. On Friday, it actually happened.

The Canucks sent Hughes, their best player and one of the best players in the NHL, to the Minnesota Wild for a trade package that included forwards Marco Rossi and Liam Ohgren, defenseman Zeev Buium and a 2026 first-round draft pick.

It ends Hughes' seven-year run with the Canucks and sends the team into what looks to be at least some sort of a rebuild. 

What it really does, however, is signify just how badly the Canucks fumbled Hughes' career and missed a great opportunity to build a winner around him. 

Quinn Hughes trade highlights failure of organization

Players like Hughes do not get traded very often.

Certainly not at this age (26), in their prime and with this level of production. They do not get traded often because 1) there are simply not very many of them, and 2) when teams get lucky enough to get them, they tend to do everything in their power to keep them happy, build a winner around them and keep them at all costs.

For a player of this caliber to get traded at this stage of their career, it is probably a good sign that something has gone terribly wrong with the franchise. 

That is the story of the Canucks. That is how this trade has to be viewed. 

That is not to say their return in the trade is bad. There are some intriguing pieces involved. Rossi is a legitimate NHL center and should slide into their vacant No. 2 center role behind Elias Pettersson (at least until he potentially gets traded at some point). Buium is one of the best defense prospects in hockey and could be an outstanding player if he reaches his full potential. 

Ohgren and the first-round pick are basically lottery tickets.