Canucks Avoid Tampering Charges After Hughes Brothers Comments

“The one thing that we will be sure of is that we will have enough cap space to offer him the kind of contract that he deserves. That’s the one thing we can prepare for," Rutherford told reporters. And it may not boil down to money with him. He’s said before he wants to play with his brothers, and that would be partly out of our control, in our control, if we brought his brothers here. So there’s many moving parts here.

"[I] agree 100% this franchise cannot afford to lose a guy like Quinn Hughes, and we will do everything we can to keep him here. But at the end of the day, it’ll be it’ll be his decision.”

That comment ruffled some feathers, particularly among New Jersey fans. While some even believed the league should look into the Canucks for possible tampering, it appears the team dodged a bullet.

According to Canucks reporter Rick Dhaliwal, the NHL will not look at any tampering charges against the Canucks for those comments.

In fact, Rutherford may have saved the Canucks with his following comments.

“We got to be careful with tampering here, so we’ll just leave it at that,” Rutherford said. “I probably crossed the line anyways.”

Tampering, of course, refers to teams attempting to persuade players who are under contract with other teams to join them through prohibited methods. If the league finds that a team has tampered with other teams' players, then it can result in hefty fines and even the loss of draft picks.

Rutherford probably shouldn't have mentioned the other Hughes' brothers at all, but he at least avoided the worst-case scenario. After the sheer amount of drama the Canucks went through this season, it's at least a small victory.