It's official: the Philadelphia Flyers pulling off a Quinn Hughes trade is not going to happen, and they should be thankful it won't.
On Friday night, Hughes, 26, was traded by the Vancouver Canucks for forwards Marco Rossi and Liam Ohgren, top defense prospect Zeev Buium, and a 2026 first-round pick.
The Flyers were never going to be able to match that, especially given that Rossi and Buium are the two clear centerpieces of the deal.
Of course, the Flyers passed on Buium for Jett Luchanko in the 2024 NHL Draft and were rumored to be interested in Rossi, only to bypass that endeavor with rumors suggesting the club would be concerned with adding a player with his 5-foot-9 size.
For the Flyers to have matched the Wild's trade offer for Hughes, they likely would have needed to part ways with Porter Martone, Cam York, Luchanko or Alex Bump, and their 2026 first-round pick, if we're aiming for 1:1 comparisons.
Missed Opportunity? Ex-Flyers Prospect Reaching Heights of NHL Superstars After Controversial Trade
The Flyers and Flyers fans have to be feeling pretty bad about how good Cutter Gauthier has been playing for the Ducks this season.
The fruit of the disappointment for fans is obviously going to be missing out on a superstar player had the Flyers acquired assets commonly linked to them throughout the summer and in previous years.
At the same time, though, the Flyers are nowhere near a win-now position like the Wild are in, because they don't have Kirill Kaprizov, high-level veterans, and two of the hottest goalies in the NHL.
Putting together this kind of trade package, considering the lack of leverage the Canucks had from the start of this whole saga, would have been egregious from Philadelphia's perspective.
That said, though, it doesn't excuse the Flyers from needing to make another big trade in the future, because they'll need to in order to find their No. 1 center of the future somehow.
Trevor Zegras's arrival has worked wonders for Danny Briere and Co., but Matvei Michkov's descent under new head coach Rick Tocchet has effectively counteracted that acquisition.
Flyers' Quinn Hughes Trade Hopes Take a Major Hit
If the <a href="https://thehockeynews.com/nhl/philadelphia-flyers">Philadelphia Flyers</a> were hoping to execute a blockbuster Quinn Hughes trade, their competition for such an ambitious endeavor just got that much stronger.
Now, the onus is on the Flyers, who need a top center and a true No. 1 defenseman, to go out and make things happen, but the Hughes trade is really an example of what not to do.
But, if the market is always going to carry prices like Friday night's, well, they may not have much of a choice going forward but to make a tough choice.
It goes almost without saying that Tocchet, Briere, and the Flyers will be disappointed to have not gotten Hughes if they were ever truly in it, but their focus needs to be on the players they have in-house first until that day finally comes for them.