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Sunday Scramble: Kirill Kaprizov’s bold gamble, Quinn Hughes puts pressure on Canucks’ season, CHL’s petty scout passes
Minnesota Wild Kirill Kaprizov
Photo credit: Brad Rempel-Imagn Images
Michael Menzies
Sep 14, 2025, 10:00 EDTUpdated: Sep 14, 2025, 10:36 EDT
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The first of my weekend reader columns went out last week, and I settled on the name Sunday Scramble (for the alliteration), but really, it should’ve been called The Panic Meter. What a sensational news week in the hockey panic department.
After the dormancy of the most boring off-season in memory, we got stories, speculation, and panic.
Cue up Bob Cole, “Ohhhhhh baby!”
It turns out that Connor McDavid isn’t the only player in the NHL in a contract season, and boy, if I were a Minnesota Wild fan, my Panic Meter would be higher than Jarrett Stoll in a Cactus Club parking lot. 
Kirill “If-You-Do-Not-Like-It-Send-Me-Back-To-The-Kremlin” Kaprizov is floating on the edge of supreme hockey confidence to outright lunacy by reportedly rejecting the richest contract in NHL history.
(That’s quite the exclusive group, ya know. Derek Sanderson had the richest contract in sports history, so the Philadelphia Blazers and the WHA could snatch headlines and dampen the Pele parade to New York.)
Kaprizov isn’t one of the surest things around because of injuries. He’s never played 82 games, coming awfully close in 2021-22. The man missed half the season last year, but there’s no denying he is one of the league’s top talents.
I thought Minnesota was being more than fair. But if everyone assumes McDavid is going to miss out on money by signing for eight more years, the same is true for Kaprizov. Maybe $16 million will be the Connor Brown zone by 2031.
If he wants to win, the Wild are not in a bad spot to finally achieve something after the pain of Parise and Suter is freed from the books. The Wild are also in the embarrassing situation where they kind of have to win right now. It’s high time for this team.
The franchise has lost eight straight playoff series. Since the 2004-05 lockout, they’ve won two rounds. For a team not barren of talent, that is hard to swallow.
Hockey media has been kind to the Wild, all things considered. If they were in a different market, thick perennial loser doom clouds would be seen across the continent.
Bill Guerin was hired in 2019. It’s 2025, folks. I’m not saying he’s a bad GM – he’s a good GM. One of the seven best GMs in the league. But how about a round? Just one round?
There’s some pressure to win in Minnesota, and they were damn good with a 19-5-4 record to begin the season, and they survived key injuries. They pushed the Vegas Golden Knights in round one.
But the time to win is arriving.
My guess is that Kaprizov is simply whelmed by Minnesota. He doesn’t love, doesn’t hate it, and is simply curious as to what’s out there.
I don’t blame the guy. In anticipation of the most loaded free agent class, who benefits from being the first to sign and leaving dollars on the table? Not the player.
And as hockey fans, we have to recalibrate our sports dollars figures with the cap going up, and be comfortable with phrases like “$16 million.”  
It takes a stronger will than mine to reject $128 million (American dollars, don’t forget), especially coming off of injury, especially because that’s enough money to stuff in three school buses and still have stacks falling out of your pocket.
Is it all too cute from the Kaprizov? Seems a tad cute, but he’s probably right that he could get smidgens more. Are the Minnesota winters that bad for a Russian? Impossible question. Is he going Hollywood on the league? Panarin path incoming?
More clouds hang over fanbases and locker rooms than just Edmonton’s. We wait.
Feb 17, 2024; East Rutherford, New Jersey, USA; New Jersey Devils center Jack Hughes (86) against the Philadelphia Flyers during the second period in a Stadium Series ice hockey game at MetLife Stadium.

Brotherly shove under the bus?

To the west of us, we aren’t talking about players in contract years. It’s even worse. Quinn Hughes is two years away from unrestricted free agency, and the Hughes Brothers Reunification plan is already spilling ink.
This is diabolical stuff.
“Honestly, I’m not afraid to say it. Yeah, I would love for Quinn to — eventually I’d love to play with him. And whether that’s in New Jersey or at what time that takes, at some point, I want to play with Quinn,” Jack Hughes said on Monday.
Jack is laying it on thick when he adds, “They talk all day about it up in Vancouver, you know? But, yeah, I’d love to play with Quinn at some point.”
So then Quinn has to play it cool because he’s, ya know, the captain of the Vancouver Canucks, and they’re as noisy as anyplace in the league. And oh yeah, the Canucks are coming off a season mired in bizarre locker room drama that capsized their season, a head coach in Rick Tocchet that seemed so frustrated he refused to return, and the president Jim Rutherford’s exit presser where he said the quiet part out loud.
So, Quinn, what are you gonna do?
“I mean, I’ve really enjoyed Vancouver. I’m very thankful. When I came to Vancouver, I don’t think I even thought I was gonna become what I’ve become. That’s happened because of the people in Vancouver — management, coaching. I’ve had great relationships with Bruce (Boudreau) and Rick (Tocchet),” Hughes said on 32 Thoughts to Elliotte Friedman.
If the McDavid “no term” comment stuck out to Oilers fans, then Hughes’ answer is like a drone strike.  
An answer about the team you’re currently playing on that is phrased in the past tense? Yikes! I’m no mind-reader, but I am a reader. That reads, purely on the phrasing here, like a player on his way out.  
It was the same when Mitch Marner was quizzed after the Leafs’ loss. Everything was phrased in the past tense.
So again, he’s two years away from free agency. There’s no rush here. He’s their best player. He added that how the team performs in 2025-26 will help dictate if he signs an extension on July 1st.  
For a franchise well-versed in brotherly combinations, this one seems tenuous, especially for the club that has the best one in Quinn.
My gut feeling? Two years from now (provided we aren’t in the midst of nuclear war), Quinn Hughes is not a Vancouver Canuck. But again, I’m not in the market, don’t know the player that well, and am merely speculating. I am but a speck on the hockey radar.
At the very least, I’d be discouraged.

Carney is a comedian

No update to the McDavid Panic Meter. Again, if he remains unsigned by Training Camp, it officially moves to 2.5/10.
Prime Minister Mark Carney has a good sense of humour, though. I laughed at the quip. I tend to feel the same about Liberal policy…

CHL says pay for a ticket to NCAA scouts

The junior hockey world is a fractured system as a consequence of a few key decisions.
Chief among them was the NCAA now allowing Canadian Hockey League players, something long forbidden, to suit up for these teams.
No bigger name than the Next One, Gavin McKenna, who left the Medicine Hat Tigers after the Memorial Cup, to take his talents to Penn State.
In the past, junior players who had their sights set specifically on the NCAA route would play Junior A in Canada, like in the AJHL or BCHL.
Now that it’s passed, you saw a torrent of activity mid-season last year in these junior leagues, where players were leaving from Junior A, poached, dropped, transferred, etc.
And in a somewhat petty move, the CHL will not issue game passes to NCAA scouts this season, as reported by Grand Forks Herald reporter Brad Elliott Schlossman. You gotta pay the admission, buddy.
The pettiness is downright hilarious. A league that last season was all too happy to collect these prospects and give them opportunities seems to resent the fact that the NCAA can do the same to them.
Look, at some point, we need more unification on this front because it feels like the wild west.
The Canadian Junior Hockey League (CJHL) has tried to allow more flexibility for Junior A teams. The BCHL, which publicly separated from Hockey Canada, has scrambled to allow more Europeans and 20-year-olds. The CHL is crying foul after ruling the roost for decades.
I just don’t have that much sympathy. The competition for players is cutthroat and isn’t just a set-and-forget system. It happens throughout the season with signings, players up and leaving, etc.
Those in the Junior A system are losing players to the BCHL at any given time. The BCHL is losing players at any given time to the CHL. The CHL is going to lose a lot of players every off-season.
When you are the poacher, everything is great. When you’ve been poached, you’re miffed.
It’s a bad look for the CHL to be this petty. Who are you, Bill Belichick?
At the same time, it’s 20-some bucks for a ticket. 

A few more things

  • Speaking of junior hockey, the BCHL is piloting an overtime experiment. During OT games during their exhibition slate this weekend, the first of these over-and-back basketball-type ideas was launched. Once a team establishes possession in the opposition’s zone, you are not allowed to intentionally carry or pass the puck outside the zone. The penalty is a faceoff in your zone without the ability to change. That’s going to lean heavily on interpretation, but it’s a pilot for a weekend in an exhibition. Worth keeping an eye on.
  • John Kelly not being renewed as the play-by-play voice of the St. Louis Blues is a big surprise. The Kelly name-calling Blues games is hockey lore. He’s one of the top pros in the biz. The Los Angeles Kings snapped him up. They’re getting a good one.
  • Sidney Crosby to the Montreal Canadiens seems like the ultimate wishcasting. I always got the sense that Crosby would rot in Pittsburgh rather than move, even if the team isn’t competitive. Sure, there’s theoretical logic in a quid pro quo here. But it just seems like NHL Be a GM mode to me.
  • The Canadiens are also a team that looks to furnish their hot end to the regular season last year with ready-made difference makers, hence the Noah Dobson pick. They’ve got a variety of prospects. I also think they aren’t quite as close as some think. They’ll be in a dogfight to make the playoffs again. I wouldn’t just pencil them in there. Another trade fits. 
  • The NHL revealed the reinstatement plan for the five players acquitted in the infamous Hockey Canada sexual assault trial. They can be signed on Oct. 15, but can’t play until Dec. 1. I’ll have more to say on this in a later article, but other than Carter Hart (and even Carter Hart) is there any other player that will get more than a team or two’s interest? Is it even worth it? 

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