How Quinn Hughes transformed the Wild into a top Cup contender - ESPN

DALLAS — The most succinct way to describe what makes Quinn Hughes so dangerous: He doesn't require a lot of time to do a lot of damage.

«When you're playing against him, the game is just so fast, you're reacting,» Minnesota Wild captain Jared Spurgeon said. «But when you're on the bench and you get a chance to watch him, that's when you realize how smart he is. There are plays he makes, and they're not always the most fancy ones but they're the subtle ones that make a huge difference for us.»

Like what he did on the Wild's first goal in Game 1 against the Dallas Stars.

The box score from the Wild's 6-1 win shows Mats Zuccarello and Matt Boldy got the assists on Joel Eriksson Ek's first of two goals.

The stats are accurate, but they tell an incomplete story.

Boldy carried the puck into the Stars' zone before passing to Kirill Kaprizov. He fed the puck to Hughes, who touched it for a second. That still was enough time for him to draw pressure that created the opening for Zuccarello and Boldy to execute those tic-tac-toe passes that found an extremely open Eriksson Ek to score from the low slot.

Quick moment, big impact.

«For sure,» Spurgeon smiled. «Absolutely.»

The Dec. 12 trade for Hughes — who won the Norris Trophy as the NHL's top defenseman in 2024 — signaled a shift for the Wild. Previously, they spent salary cap dollars carefully. They deftly added around the edges, while developing one of the league's strongest prospect pipelines. General manager Bill Guerin developed this system, and his rosters advanced to the playoffs five times in his first six seasons.

The Wild finished with the eighth-most points in the NHL since Dec. 13, the day after Hughes was added. They finished five points behind the Colorado