VANCOUVER — After the smouldering but inextinguishable brush fire that is the Quinn Hughes situation was fanned again Saturday on Hockey Night in Canada, illuminating the uncertainty of his future with the Vancouver Canucks, two other defencemen showed why the team sees them as essential to whatever comes next.

Friends and countrymen Tom Willander and Elias Pettersson (Junior), who are breaking into the National Hockey League together after first playing as defence partners for Sweden’s national junior team two years ago, scored goals a little more than two minutes apart as the Canucks stunned the Minnesota Wild 4-2 at Rogers Arena.

It wasn’t just that the last-place Canucks ended a four-game losing streak against one of the NHL’s hottest teams and its untouchable goalie that was so surp

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