The "he's not signing" chant was aimed at Quinn Hughes. All of it. There's no mystery here, no buried dig at some other player. A building full of people booed the defenseman who used to wear their captaincy and reminded him that he hasn't committed to the team he forced his way to either.
That's the whole bit. The folks insisting it was sloppily pointed at the wrong guy, or that it was secretly Vancouver sweating its own captain's loyalty, are describing a story that ended ten months ago.
Hughes isn't Vancouver's captain. He hasn't been since last December, when the Canucks traded him to the Wild for Marco Rossi, Liam Ohgren, Zeev Buium and a first-round pick. The front office knew he wouldn't sign an extension, so they cashed him in while he still carried value. The "will he stay" agony Canucks fans supposedly put themselves through on October 25 was settled, painfully, by their own team almost a year earlier. You can't relitigate a breakup you already lost.
RatingWhich is exactly what makes the chant so good, and so petty. Minnesota walked into Rogers Arena sitting atop the Central Division, with seven wins in its first twelve games as of that night. Vancouver came in with five points through roughly a dozen games, one of the uglier starts in the Pacific. A last-place crowd isn't loaded with ammunition. What this one had was the knowledge that Hughes has been eligible to extend with the Wild since July 1 and still hasn't, and that if he doesn't by the end of June he hits unrestricted free agency. They turned that into a tune and sang it at him in the first and second periods.
The only version of this chant that's hypocritical is one where Vancouver still wanted him. They didn't. They decided that for themselves and traded him. Mocking a guy for not committing to Minnesota isn't rich coming from a fanbase that got told, by its own general manager, that he was never committing to them. He wouldn't sign there, he won't sign here, and the people who got burned first are allowed to point and laugh.
Kaprizov was never in this argument. He put a $136-million signature, the richest in league history, on the Wild over a year ago. Dragging him into the read on this chant is the actual misdirection.
Hughes handled the night the way you'd expect from the best player on the ice. He scored his 500th NHL point against the team that drafted him in 2018, set up a Kaprizov goal, and offered the room a tidy "Passion with the fan base is what makes it special to play here" on the way out. The Wild get him again in Vancouver on November 21, so the crowd can workshop a sequel.
This chant belongs entirely to Vancouver, and it's earned. It had nothing to do with Minnesota or Kaprizov. It was a fanbase that lost its best player booing the fact that it couldn't keep him, the one grievance here that's real.
