Jim Rutherford reveals the real reason Quinn Hughes left Vancouver.

The Vancouver Canucks, recently voted the National Hockey League's worst run franchise, fired general manager Patrik Allvin this week leading to a very interesting media availability from Canucks president of hockey operations Jim Rutherford.

Rutherford fielded a number of questions during his media availability but it was his comments about former Canucks' defenseman Quinn Hughes that may have been the most interesting. When answering why Hughes ultimately made the decision to leave the Canucks organization, Rutherford threw his former player under the bus when he suggested the Canucks never had a chance at retaining him.

"Some people think Quinn left here because the team wasn't any good," said Rutherford. "He was leaving anyway."

Of course that's easy to say when you have a team that is badly underperforming, as no one truly knows how Hughes would have felt in a winning situation. Rutherford however compared it to a recent trade involving the Florida Panthers and Calgary Flames, suggesting that Hughes' time in Vancouver was always going to end one way.

"The best example I can give you is Matthew Tkachuk," said Rutherford. "He was in Calgary, he had a good team, he wanted to go back to the U.S. and he went."

Rutherford also offered an ominous warning, suggesting that there are plenty of players who would do what Hughes did if they had the option to do so.

"This is not gonna be the last guy that decides he is gonna leave," said Rutherford.

While Rutherford effectively absolved himself of any blame by suggesting that Hughes never wanted to stay, he did compliment the player and added that he was well within his right to make that choice.

"I'm close to him, I really like him, I respect what he did in Vancouver," said Rutherford. "He put on a good show for a lot of years but guys work towards free agency and we should respect the fact that he had that option."

A choice that Rutherford seems to truly believe was the only one that Hughes was ever going to make.

"He was going to exercise the option to go back to the United States," said Rutherford definitively.