Last summer at the start of free agency, Wild owner Craig Leipold floated the idea that, for the team’s fans, it could be Christmas in July.

On Friday night, general manager Bill Guerin reminded those fans that Christmas comes in December.

With the Wild battling Colorado and Dallas for supremacy in the Central Division, Guerin pulled off perhaps the biggest in-season move in the franchise’s 25-year history, bringing superstar defenseman Quinn Hughes to Minnesota for at least this season and next.

Guerin sent young defenseman Zeev Buium, center Marco Rossi, forward Liam Ohgren — all of them former first-rounders — and a first-round selection in the 2026 NHL draft to the Vancouver Canucks for Hughes, who is widely considered one of the top two or three blueliners in the NHL.

Hughes, 26, is a two-time All-Star and won the Norris Trophy — given to the NHL’s best defenseman — following the 2023-24 season.

Mel Pearson, who recruited Hughes to Michigan and coached him for two seasons there, including a trip to the Frozen Four in St. Paul in 2018, said the Wild won the trade.

“He’s just a great, great pickup for Minnesota,” Pearson said. “I know they gave up quite a bit to get him but there are only so many Norris Trophy-type defensemen in the NHL.”

Hughes has scored 16 and 17 goals the past two seasons, but he’s been limited to two goals and 21 assists in 26 games this season. During his Norris-winning campaign, he had 17 goals and 75 assists for 92 points.

Guerin, the general manager for Team USA at the upcoming Milano Cortina Winter Olympics, had made it clear that Hughes would be on the team in February in Italy. Hughes is working on a six-year contract that pays him $7.8 million per season through the end of the 2026-27 campaign.

“He’s the type of guy that you pay money to go see,” Pearson said. “He’s one of those guys that brings you out of your seat, and I think what people don’t realize is what a competitor he is also. That’s what’s made him into the player he is. He’s got the skill you can see, and when he’s on the ice, he controls the play.”

The package being sent to the Canucks — who missed the playoffs in four out of the previous five seasons and are off to a slow start under first-year head coach Adam Foote — is sizable.

Rossi has missed the past month with an injury but played all 82 games for the Wild each of the previous two seasons, often anchoring the team’s top line at center. He was the Wild’s first-round draft pick, ninth overall, in 2020.

Buium made his NHL debut in the playoffs last season after two years of college hockey at Denver, where he won a NCAA title in 2024. Widely considered one of the league’s top young defensemen, he had three goals and 11 assists for the Wild this season in their first 31 games. He was the team’s first-rounder, 12th overall, in 2024.

Ohgren, picked 19th overall by the Wild in the 2022 draft, has played 50 games for Minnesota over the past three seasons, often in a bottom-six role. In 18 games at the NHL level this season, he has been held without a point.

Hughes comes from what some have called the first family of American hockey.

His father and mother were both college hockey players, and Quinn’s brothers, Jack and Luke, both play for the New Jersey Devils currently, sparking myriad speculation of a family reunion in Newark someday. Multiple reports say that New Jersey was also in discussions with Vancouver about a possible trade. Jack was the No. 1 overall pick in the 2019 NHL draft, while Luke — who also played at Michigan — went fourth overall to the Devils in 2021.

Quinn, the seventh-overall pick in the 2018 draft, could be offered an extension by the Wild starting on July 1, 2026.

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