The Minnesota Wild made an all-in move for one of the NHL’s best players in his prime, acquiring defenseman Quinn Hughes from the Vancouver Canucks in a blockbuster trade — their boldest action yet toward ending a decade-long skid of playoff series defeats.

The teams announced the seismic move on Friday night, after the 2024 Norris Trophy winner as the league’s top defenseman had been the most talked-about trade candidate over the past couple of weeks. Minnesota sent center Marco Rossi, defenseman Zeev Buium, winger Liam Ohgren and a first-round pick in the 2026 draft to suddenly rebuilding Vancouver to complete the deal.

The trade was the second major swap of the day, after two-time Stanley Cup Final runner-up Edmonton finally made a move for a goaltender, acquiring Tristan Jarry from Pittsburgh.

Rossi (24), Ohgren (21) and Buium (20) fit the mold of the young talent the Canucks were speculated to be targeting if they were going to trade Hughes. Rossi (2020), Ohgren (2022) and Buium (2024) were all recent first-round draft picks by the Wild.

“Quinn played hard, led by example and did a lot of very good things for the Canucks,” Vancouver general manager Patrik Allvin said. “Trading away a player of this caliber is never an easy decision to make, but it was one we had to do to make our team better. We are so excited to add a solid centre in Marco, a good young blueliner in Zeev and a versatile forward in Liam. This year’s draft is a strong one, so acquiring a first-round pick was also a big part of this deal.”

Hughes had no trade-blocking protection in his current deal that pays him an average of $7.85 million annually. Hughes, who is 26 and widely considered the best at player on the blue line behind only Colorado’s Cale Makar, is signed through the 2026-27 season before he can become an unrestricted free agent.

The Wild will not be allowed to extend Hughes until July 1, and it’s unclear if he would consider signing a new contract with them. There has been plenty of buzz around the league that Quinn wants to play with his brothers, Jack and Luke, with the New Jersey Devils.

They could potentially be teammates on the U.S. Olympic team, either in February in Milan or in 2030. Wild general manager Bill Guerin runs USA Hockey’s management team.

The long-term outlook for Hughes can wait until next summer, though. The Wild are focused on challenging the two top teams ahead of them in the loaded Central Division, rivals that happen to also have the top two records in the NHL: Colorado and Dallas.

The season-long celebration of the franchise’s 25th anniversary would be a lot more meaningful if the Wild can finally advance in the playoffs, having lost nine straight series after a first-round victory over St. Louis in 2015. The Wild have passed the second round just once in their entire existence, when they were swept in the Western Conference finals by Anaheim in 2003.

Hughes is a significant upgrade to Minnesota’s blue line, anchored by captain and 16-year veteran Jared Spurgeon, smooth-skating 14-year veteran Jonas Brodin and young stalwart Brock Faber. The emergence of rookie goalie Jesper Wallstedt this season has given the Wild a reliable tandem with Filip Gustavsson in the net, with star winger Kirill Kaprizov leading the attack after recently signing the richest contract in hockey history to stay in the “State of Hockey” through 2034.

After a rough start, the Wild are 14-3-2 since Nov. 1. They host Ottawa on Saturday and Boston on Sunday night, with the latter game likely the more realistic one for Hughes to debut.

Hughes had two goals, 21 assists and 32 blocked shots in 23 games this season with the last-in-the-NHL Canucks. When he won the Norris Trophy two seasons ago, Hughes had 17 goals and 75 assists, both single-season franchise records for defensemen and the most among all blue liners in the league. Drafted seventh overall in 2018 out of Michigan, the native of Orlando, Florida, spent time growing up in the Boston and Toronto areas while his father, a hockey coach, moved around.

This was Hughes’ third season as Vancouver’s captain, and his abrupt exit paves the way for more change 11 months since the trade of J.T. Miller to the New York Rangers and in the aftermath of coach Rick Tocchet’s departure.

“With the circumstances surrounding J.T. and now Quinn, we are fortunate to acquire these very good young players from Minnesota,” Canucks president of hockey operations Jim Rutherford said. “They will be a key part of the rebuild that we are currently in, giving us a bright future moving forward. The hockey club will continue to build with talented young players using that as a blueprint to become a contender sooner rather than later.”

The first results of KSTP’s exclusive SurveyUSA poll on fraud in Minnesota have been released.

Our survey asked: Do you think fraud in state programs is the biggest problem in Minnesota?

From a group of 578 registered voters, 79% say it’s either the biggest problem or a major problem.

Another question asked was: Has Gov. Tim Walz done enough to stop fraud in Minnesota?

Fourteen percent say that he’s done enough, while 69% say he needs to do more.

The survey also asked if the Legislature has done enough — 11% say yes, and 74% say they need to do more.

Click here for KSTP’s full coverage on fraud.

You can view the results of the fraud-related KSTP/SurveyUSA results below:

WASHINGTON – The Trump administration’s war on Minnesota resumed this week with the continuation of Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s “Operation Metro Surge” and an escalation of President Trump’s rhetoric about the state’s Somalis and Gov. Tim Walz.

Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins opened a new front by also attacking Walz this week, saying in a post on X that the state’s food stamp program was beset by fraud perpetrated by “illegals” and “transnational crime rings.”

“@GovTimWalz. Welfare benefits are for the truly needed,” Rollins said. “Not bad actors, Not criminals. And not for Illegals. @USDA compliance investigations will be asked to reauthorize to accept SNAP. Say goodbye to trafficking, transnational crime rings, and skimmed benefits in MN retailers.”

Rep. Angie Craig, D-2^nd District, quickly pointed out that it’s the USDA, not the state, that is responsible for licensing and overseeing retailers that accept Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) payments from their customers through EBT cards.

“USDA has the responsibility to oversee SNAP retailers, so tweeting about my governor is idiotic,” said Craig, the top Democrat on the House Agriculture Committee. “Undocumented individuals have never been eligible for SNAP benefits. This is just another cruel effort from this administration to use Minnesota’s immigrant community as pawns in its fights with a Democratic-led state.”

Minnesota was already at loggerheads with Rollins because it is one of 22 states that have failed to provide the USDA with records of its SNAP program, including the names of recipients and transaction data.

Rollins, who issued the request on May 6,  has threatened non-compliant states with the elimination of  the federal funds to administer the program. Those funds have already been reduced by Trump’s “big beautiful” budget bill, which resulted in hikes in property taxes in Minnesota where individual counties run the food stamp program. A further reduction in federal funds could wreak new havoc on the budgets of the state’s counties.

Instead of providing information about their SNAP program to Rollins, Minnesota and the 21 other states have sued the USDA.

“USDA’s attempt to collect this information from Plaintiff States flies in the face of privacy and security protections in federal and state law,” the lawsuit says.

It also says that, while the USDA has demanded the information to detect “overpayments and fraud,” the move “appears to be part of the federal government’s well-publicized campaign to amass enormous troves of personal and private data, including information on taxpayers and Medicaid recipients, to advance goals that have nothing to do with combating waste, fraud, or abuse in federal benefit programs.”

Minnesota’s GOP lawmakers, however, have sided with the USDA on this issue.

Reps. Brad Finstad, R-1^st District; Pete Stauber, R-8^th District; Tom Emmer, R-6^th District; and Michelle Fischbach, R-7th District, wrote to Walz and the leaders of Minnesota’s state Legislature this week

The lawmakers said an analysis of the 28 GOP-led states that did provide the information requested by Rollins found substantial fraud in the food stamp program.

Among other things, the lawmakers asked the Walz administration to provide “a full explanation” of why the state did not complete “required security assessments of SNAP systems” and “an update on the state’s response” to Rollins’s data request.

Senate stumbles on extending ACA subsidies 

As was expected, the U.S. Senate on Thursday failed to approve a Democratic bill that would have extended enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies and a GOP bill that would have provided those who buy health insurance from MNsure or from ACA exchanges in other states with expanded health savings accounts as an alternative to the enhanced subsidies.

Those enhanced subsidies allowed higher-income Minnesotans (making up to 400% of the federal poverty level or $128,600 in income for a family of four) to receive help in paying for their health insurance premiums. They also increased aid for those with lower incomes.

About 90,000 Minnesotans benefited from those enhanced premiums. But they expire on Dec. 31. The subsidies are paid directly to insurers and the nation’s insurance companies have already factored the loss of that money (about $40 billion a year) in their proposals for 2026 rates, which will increase substantially for those who purchase insurance from an ACA exchange.

Even those who receive their health care coverage from their employer or purchase their health care outside an exchange will see premiums rise, because of medical inflation and GOP cuts to Medicaid as well as the expectation the enhanced GOP subsidies will end.

Thursday’s Senate votes were part of a deal Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., made with Democrats to end the government shutdown last month.

But a bipartisan compromise has been elusive. Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith joined their Democratic colleagues in voting for an extension of the subsidies and against the GOP plan. Both bills were rejected because they failed to secure the 60 votes needed to end a filibuster.

“By refusing to act, Congress has put millions of Americans in an impossible position — forcing families, farmers, and small business owners to question whether they can even afford to keep their insurance,” Klobuchar said in a statement. “I will keep fighting to end this health care crisis, lower costs, and increase access to quality care.”

The prospect of extending the enhanced premium subsidies faces an even steeper climb in the U.S. House, where GOP leaders continue to seek an end to the Affordable Care Act.

Still, there is faint hope for a bipartisan compromise. Two bipartisan bills in the House would extend the subsidies for a year or two, with restrictions on those who would qualify for the aid.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., does not want to schedule a vote on legislation that would extend the ACA subsidies. But he said he will allow a vote next week on a Republican alternative. 

Meanwhile, House sponsors of the bipartisan bills are seeking the signatures of a majority — or 218 — of House members that would force consideration of their bills.

Even if lawmakers are able to hold a vote on a bipartisan compromise, that cannot be done until next year. Congress plans to leave Washington, D.C., on its holiday break next week.  

In other news:

▪️We wrote about President Trump’s stepped up attacks on the Somali community in Minnesota and U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar, including public calls for the Somali-American lawmaker to be deported.

▪️We also shared an AP story about the Trump administration’s plan to provide $12 billion for farmers struggling in the wake of a trade war spawned by new tariffs on China.

▪️How thorough has an audit of payments in the state’s 14 Medicaid program been? Matt Blake took a look.

▪️Also, Cleo Krejci interviewed a GOP state lawmaker who is resisting calls for Republicans to refute President Trump’s comments about Somalis, calling it “selective partisan outrage” on the part of Democrats.

This and that

A reader responded to a story about President Donald Trump’s latest, and most disturbing, attack on Rep. Ilhan Omar and Minnesota’s Somali community, which referenced a Tuesday rally in Pennsylvania at which Trump said, “Why is it we only take people from shithole countries, right? Why can’t we have some people from Norway, Sweden?”

“What Trump is saying is no less vile than what Nazis said about Jews,” the reader wrote. “He wonders why modern America is not attracting Norwegians, Swedes and Danes? The answer – those places are far better places to learn, work, raise a family and age in good health.  Nobody wants to live in a place led by an angry, violent and psychotic bully when they have a better option.”  

Please keep your comments, and any questions, coming. I’ll try my best to respond. Please contact me at aradelat@minnpost.com.

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