Unpopular opinion, but...
We should be prepared for Hughes to want to test the market in a few years, and they'll likely trade him for a massive haul to kickstart the rebuild. His agent is JP Barry is who is notorious for contract holdouts, and we know there is always the Jack/Luke factor playing into things. Doubly so if the team dynamic is still not great once one or both of the Gruesome Twosome are moved out. Hughes is still good value even at a max term/cap deal, but that essentially means you have to have zero margin for error in constructing the rest of the roster, and we've seen how that's gone in the last decade plus.
IMO if you're blowing up the core, you might as well get it over with and move him in the offseason while he still has a few years left being cost-controlled. He is worth an absolute King's Ransom, and as much as it would hurt trading a generational talent in the middle of his prime, they did such a terrible job of building the team around him that losing him for nothing sounds like a much, much worse option. The mistake was always building around their forwards instead of recognizing what they had in Hughes, and doing their absolute best to tailor the system and personnel to his game.
Bottom out for a few years during the McKenna/Dupont drafts, and try to start over fresh with a genuine rebuild. The Canucks have been avoiding a rebuild since Gillis left. You cannot generally retool your way to a Stanley Cup, that is something that desperate GMs and Presidents do so they can remain employed. Very savvy managers can pull it off, but we're talking maybe four or five in the entire league. No owner wants to accept a rebuild, but IMO you can't actually compete without going through the process properly. Cutting corners has always burned this franchise.