Quinn Hughes adjusts to the Wild, seeks to find chemistry with new teammates on power play

Quinn Hughes will enjoy taking a break from hockey for the holidays, but the defenseman also wishes he could keep playing.

“Just feels like I’m gonna start getting a groove here,” he said.

Hughes is six games into his Wild tenure, seven if you count the one the Wild played the afternoon after the team acquired him from Vancouver but before the 26-year-old arrived in Minnesota.

The partnership is off to a smooth start, with the Wild going 4-1-1 and Hughes chipping in a goal and three assists with the defensive stalwart, offensive playmaker and power-play quarterback repertoire that has made him a star.

“He’s obviously a special player, a special person and a great teammate,” said Brock Faber, who’s been next to Hughes on the Wild’s top defensive pairing. “He’s a competitor. He’s only going to get more and more comfortable here, and it’s obviously shown in the way we’ve been playing how much he really impacts the game just by himself.”

But now is probably a good time as any for the Wild to have a hiatus, even if it’s for only three days.

Although they were back up to speed after they looked gassed in a 5-1 loss to Colorado on Sunday, the Wild were still off their next time out, falling 3-2 in overtime to Nashville on Tuesday night in a special-teams field day. Before converting at 3-on-3, the Predators capitalized on two power plays while the Wild blanked on their three tries.

“We were imploring them to shoot the puck as the game continued to go on … but today it seemed like we wanted to play a little bit of a prettier game from an offensive perspective,” coach John Hynes said, “and [that] probably cost us some goals.”

Still, the Wild will restart their season third in the NHL and on a seven-game trip while the World Junior Championship takes over Grand Casino Arena.

The Wild have had seven consecutive road games before, but this will be the first time they don’t return to Minnesota during the stretch.

“We’ve played a lot of hockey in not that long of a time period,” Faber said. “So I think it’ll be good to get some time off and reset and not think about hockey for a couple days. Then when we get back from the short little break, it’s go time again. We got to keep building.”

How the Wild continue to gel with Hughes as he gets more reps in their lineup will be intriguing to watch once they reconvene at Winnipeg.

“You watch [Cale] Makar and [Nathan] MacKinnon and those guys how they snapped it around on their power play,” Hughes said, referring to the pair of goals the Avalanche scored against the Wild. “We’re obviously not there right now, and they’ve been together seven years and know how each other thinks and know where each other likes the puck and whatnot.

“So it won’t take us seven years, I don’t think, but I think it’ll take us a couple games to just understand each other, and that’s kind of what I’ve been preaching the whole time even though you’re sitting there and you want it to happen right now.”

There’s also a process to creating chemistry between Hughes and Faber on defense, although the two clicked seamlessly on the Wild’s first goal vs. Nashville in the first period that saw Hughes weave into the offensive zone and hand off to Faber for a quick release into the back of the net.

“He communicates really well, and he always feels like he’s in a good spot to get the puck,” Faber said. “There’s a few things that I want to clean up on my end. It’s obviously different. I’ve never played with an offensive defenseman of that caliber. So, we’re going to keep getting better, and obviously I’m just going to try and support him as best I can.”

But settling in on the ice isn’t the only transition Hughes is making after parts of eight seasons with the Canucks and his first NHL trade.