Interesting aspect of the Hughes to Minnesota trade; Minnesota will be the only team that can sign him to an 8-year extension. They have from July 1, 2026 to September 15, 2026 to sign him to an 8-year deal, which is going to be at minimum 15 AAV, but probably closer to 17 AAV if I had to guess. After September 15, 2026 the new CBA kicks in and the maximum he could receive is 7 years.
Quinn Hughes is 26, so an 8-year extension puts him at 34, and a 7-year deal puts him at 33. Even though age and years wise it'd not much of a difference, I doubt he'd want to leave potentially 16 million on the table. I could be wrong, and he might be good enough to get to 33 and be able to squeeze another 3 year deal out of a team at 6-8 million per year. Interesting stuff.