VANCOUVER -- Quinn Hughes won’t play for the Vancouver Canucks against the Anaheim Ducks on Wednesday (10:30 p.m. ET; SNP, KCOP-13, Victory+) and the Canucks' No. 1 defenseman remains day to day with a lower-body injury sustained in a 6-3 loss at the Seattle Kraken on Saturday.
Hughes sat out the final 9:05 in Seattle and did not practice the following day in Vancouver. He did return to practice Tuesday but left after 15 minutes, and was not on the ice for the Canucks morning skate Wednesday.
“He'll get a bunch of treatment and we'll go from there,” coach Rick Tocchet said Wednesday. “I don't know how many days but we're going to shut him down tonight and see how it is tomorrow. That's really what the injury is right now, see how it works out, see the severity. Every day, it kind of changes. He feels a bit better and then it’s, can he get through a practice?”
The reigning Norris Trophy winner, voted as the NHL's top defenseman, Hughes missed six games and was out more than three weeks with an oblique injury before and after the 4 Nations Face-Off, which he was forced to miss. The game in Seattle was his third back, and Tocchet said the new injury is in part a result of compensating for the first one.
“I don't think he’ll ever be 100 percent sure this year,” Tocchet said. “I don't think so, but I can say that about other guys around the League, it's hard to be 100 percent at this time of the year.”
The question now is how healthy Hughes has to be before he can return. The 25-year-old has 60 points (14 goals, 46 assists) in 50 games, which leads Vancouver and is third among NHL defensemen, and leads the Canucks in average ice time at 25:07.
Hughes also leads Vancouver with a plus-10 rating but was minus-3 in each of his past two games.
“Eighty percent Quinn we'll take on our team right now," Tocchet said, "but we’ve also got to be careful because he wasn't himself last couple games, even defensively.
"If he does play, he's got to be calculated when he goes and when he doesn't and it's hard because he wants to go all the time. That's why he's such a great hockey player.”
