When Quinn Hughes is on the ice, the Vancouver Canucks are outright dominant.
In all situations, the Canucks have out-scored their opponents 13-to-4 with Hughes on the ice. Considering the New York Islanders and San Jose Sharks have scored 13 goals total this season — and the Edmonton Oilers and Nashville Predators have scored 14 — that’s pretty dang good.
Of course, it helps that Hughes leads the Canucks in ice time on the power play, which is clicking at 26.3% to start the season. But even at 5-on-5, Hughes is crushing the competition.
Through six games, shot attempts are 163-to-92 for the Canucks when Hughes is on the ice at 5-on-5. Shots on goal are 81-to-42; goals are 7-to-2. Hughes leads the Canucks in corsi percentage (63.9%), shots on goal percentage (65.9%), and expected goals percentage (65.8%), all by a wide margin.
Though it’s obviously still early in the season and we’re working with small sample sizes, all of these are an improvement on last season for Hughes, which was the best season of his career in each of those categories.
All that is to say, the winner of the Norris last season as the best defenceman in the NHL is arguably even better to start this season.
The trouble for the Canucks starts when Hughes steps off the ice.
Canucks are two different teams with and without Hughes
When Hughes is on the ice at 5-on-5, the Canucks have out-shot their opponents 81-to 42, which is nearly a 2-to-1 margin. That’s a plus-39 shot differential with Hughes on the ice — a huge advantage for the Canucks.
When Hughes is not on the ice, however, the Canucks give that advantage right back. Without Hughes, the Canucks have been out-shot 96-58 — a minus-38 shot differential.
As a result, despite outright dominance by Hughes, the Canucks have just one more shot than their opponents at 5-on-5.
The difference with and without Hughes is stark in every category: shot attempts (corsi), shots on goal, expected goals, and goals.
The issue for the Canucks is that it doesn’t do much good for Hughes to dominate if every advantage he creates is immediately reversed when he steps off the ice. The Canucks are essentially breaking even as a team at 5-on-5 — a team with Quinn Hughes should not break even at 5-on-5.
Canucks can't survive with just one defence pairing
The primary problem for the Canucks is their second pairing.
The four defencemen that have played on the team’s third pairing have had their ups and downs as they sort out their game but there’s only so much that can go wrong in their limited minutes. If one of their third-pairing defencemen struggles, it’s relatively easy to shelter them, bench them, or scratch them.
Tyler Myers and Carson Soucy, however, average around 20 minutes per game and are expected to face tough competition every night. If they struggle, there’s nowhere to hide.
And boy, have they struggled.
Every Canucks defenceman not named Hughes or Hronek has an expected goals percentage under 50%, meaning their opponents have out-chanced them at 5-on-5, but Myers and Soucy have the worst metrics of the lot.
The biggest issue has been Soucy. Beyond the numbers, Soucy has visibly struggled to break the puck out of the defensive zone and has been caught napping in his defensive coverage. It's a stark difference from the calming presence he was last season.
With Soucy on the ice at 5-on-5, the Canucks have a minus-34 shot differential — the worst in the entire NHL.
To be fair to Soucy and Myers, they have a tough job. They start the majority of their shifts in the defensive zone and regularly face tough opponents, though not as much as Hughes and Filip Hronek.
But the fact that they’re getting tough minutes does not negate the fact that they are getting crushed in those minutes.
At the very least, the Canucks need a second pairing on defence that can hold serve. They don't need to win their minutes but they can't lose their minutes either.
The Canucks' options for better pairings behind Quinn Hughes
The question for the Canucks is what can they do about it?
To a certain extent, the Canucks made their own bed when they spent their limited cap space on re-signing Tyler Myers and adding Vincent Desharnais in free agency instead of looking to add a legitimate top-four defenceman. The Canucks made a savvy move in to improve their depth but he’s not a top-four defenceman either.
Their first option is to wait it out and see if Soucy and Myers get back on track. They were reasonably good at playing low-event minutes against elite competition last season — perhaps they’ll figure it out again this season.
A second option is to switch up the pairings and see if Filip Hronek can carry a second pairing on his own. This is far from an ideal option, as it could blunt Hughes’ dominance, which is aided by having a strong puck-mover like Hronek on the ice with him. But if it can help the team as a whole, it might be worth it.
Moving Soucy to the third pairing and bumping Brännström up to the second pairing with Myers is the third option but it's probably a non-starter. As much as Rick Tocchet praised Brännström after his game against the Chicago Blackhawks, there have still been some nervous moments in the defensive zone with Brännström.
The fourth option, of course, is to acquire another defenceman.
The Canucks added Nikita Zadorov last season in a trade with the Calgary Flames. While he was far from a low-event, shutdown defenceman, he provided an element on the backend that the Canucks were missing: a defenceman who could play a physical game but could also move the puck effectively.
In the playoffs, Zadorov ended up third among Canucks defencemen in ice time behind Hughes and Hronek.
Can Patrik Allvin once again find a defenceman on the trade market to keep the Canucks from being a one-pairing team? If so, when will Allvin pull the trigger on a deal? He didn’t wait long last year, acquiring Zadorov at the end of November, a little over a month into the season.
So, Canucks: what'll it be?
