The most impactful defenceman on the planet plays for the Vancouver Canucks, yet their blue-line group is far and away the most maligned and criticized part of the roster.
Vancouver has a Vezina-calibre netminder, yet its most important player in the blue paint this season has been a bargain-bin unrestricted free agent it played hardball with in August and September before signing him after training camp had nearly concluded.
For a Canucks team that has largely failed to build on the dizzying success of 2023-24 through the first half of this season, the play of their goaltenders and blueliners looms especially large. So let’s follow up on our forward grades from yesterday by handing out our midseason grades to Vancouver’s defenders and goalies.
All grades are handed out relative to expectations. The second and third pairs have been major liabilities all year, but we didn’t hand out any D’s or F’s for the defencemen because the bottom-four blue-line personnel already profiled as a major weakness on paper before the season started.
You can’t harshly criticize marginal defencemen when they struggle in larger-than-expected roles. For example, we should expect Noah Juulsen, a No. 7 defenceman based on his talent level, to bend under the pressure of playing top-four minutes at times. It’s not his fault he’s struggled in that sizable role; the real issue is the organization has constructed a subpar blue line in which he’s asked to take on a significant workload.
39 GP, 9-38-47
What more is there to say about Quinn Hughes’ masterclass season? He leads the Canucks in scoring by 17 points. He’s the best play-driving defenceman in the NHL, with the Canucks controlling nearly 60 percent of scoring chances and outscoring opponents by a plus-17 goal differential with him on the ice at five-on-five.
Watching Hughes on the Canucks this season has almost been like watching the Edmonton Oilers during the early part of Connor McDavid’s and Leon Draisaitl’s careers. In both cases, the team is a terrifying force when their superstars hit the ice but almost totally inept when they’re on the bench.
Updated #canucks numbers with and without Hughes on ice.
SAT +242 -318
Shots +103 -130
Chances +112 -139
Goals +18 -12Hart conversation? Certainly no one has been more important to his team.
— Dan Murphy (@sportsnetmurph) January 15, 2025
Hughes gets a lot of praise for his play with the puck, but his defensive game is also reaching an elite level. He effortlessly breaks up rushes and steals possession back countless times throughout the game because of his exceptional gap control, smart routes and disruptive stick. The Canucks have surrendered just 2.01 goals against per 60 during Hughes’ five-on-five shifts, which is the best mark of his NHL career.
Hughes is performing even better than last year when he won the Norris Trophy. He’s the slam-dunk best defenceman in the NHL this season and deserves to be in the Hart Trophy finalist conversation.
22 GP, 1-8-9
In some ways, the absence of Filip Hronek from the Canucks lineup has only made his value more apparent.
While Hronek has been absent since late November due to an apparent shoulder injury and an unrelated surgery to repair a lower-body ailment, in his 21 games to open the campaign, the Czechia-born defender was his usual impactful self.
Surly on the ice with an incredible knack for being in the way — both defensively and as a pick artist on the breakout — Hronek’s also a skilled complement for Hughes. In fact, Vancouver’s ability to generate looks and offensive control hits another level when Hughes and Hronek are out there together. As good as Hughes is, as obvious as it is that he is the driver on Vancouver’s first pair, Vancouver simply doesn’t hit the same level in Hronek’s absence that it can when its top pair is together.
As a critical half of the most dominant first pair in hockey, Hronek’s value as an indispensable piece of this Canucks core has been established beyond any reasonable argument in the first half of this season.
43 GP, 2-10-12
It’s a tale as old as time: Everybody begins the year hoping Tyler Myers can be deployed like a No. 4/5 defenceman, only for him to log huge minutes and tough matchups out of necessity. Myers has had ups and downs this season, but he’s held his own reasonably well considering his escalated usage.
Myers began the 2024-25 season on a shutdown pair with Carson Soucy. They were almost unplayable together because of their inability to break the puck out and their uncharacteristic defensive mistakes; the Canucks controlled just 38 percent of scoring chances and were outscored 13-7 during their five-on-five minutes together. Soucy was definitely the bigger problem, but Myers wasn’t performing up to standard either.
However, the towering 34-year-old righty has been much better since the two got separated. It helps he’s played with Hughes a lot lately, but Myers handled top-pair duties in Hronek’s absence as well as anyone could have hoped.
Myers’ two-way analytics aren’t the best, but it’s not his fault the club is asking so much of him, not to mention the Canucks had a positive goal differential with him on the ice up until Tuesday’s loss against Winnipeg.
Carson Soucy: C-
43 GP, 1-5-6
It’s been difficult to make sense of Soucy’s season to this point.
In his first Canucks season, Soucy was the definition of a steady, high-IQ defensive defenceman. He scaled up his usage from the third pair to the second pair without missing a beat and handled matchup minutes spectacularly in the 2024 playoffs.
This season, however, his level of play has vacillated. He struggled mightily in the first month of the season, then found his form and stabilized his play for a five-week stretch in the second half of November and first couple weeks in December. Then he appeared to hit another wall.
Perhaps it’s injury-related, but recently, Soucy’s skating stride has looked off relative to his usual form. His mobility has appeared compromised relative to what we saw earlier this season and last year.
Of course, in the wake of a tough run of games, the Canucks moved Soucy to his off side against the Toronto Maple Leafs on Saturday night and he promptly turned in one of his best individual performances of the season.
It’s difficult to make heads or tails, frankly, of what Soucy has been, in part because his level of performance has been so volatile. That lack of predictability, given his role and skill set, speaks volumes about his ineffectiveness overall, even if it’s probably not quite that simple.
29 GP, 0-0-3
The Canucks must have been banking on Vincent Desharnais having untapped upside when they signed him to a two-year, $2 million AAV contract in free agency. It seemed like a questionable decision at the time — the Canucks already had enough big, stay-at-home defencemen with puck-moving limitations — and the move isn’t aging any better halfway through the season.
When Hronek went down with an injury, Juulsen was trusted to handle top-four minutes instead of Desharnais. And now that Hronek’s back, it’s Desharnais sitting in the press box as a healthy scratch instead of Juulsen.
At times, Desharnais has played like a steady No. 6/7 defender, but his foot speed and puck skills are issues.
It’s also highly possible his fit in Vancouver has been suboptimal and that he’d perform better in a different environment. Desharnais’ best work with the Oilers last season came when he played with Brett Kulak, a smooth-skating puck-mover. Desharnais’ numbers with Erik Brännström were solid (they controlled 51 percent of scoring chances and had a plus-one goal differential), but otherwise, the Canucks lack a mobile third-pair partner for him to play with.
In any case, it isn’t working out for him and as a result, his name has surfaced on the trade market.
17 GP, 0-0-3
Derek Forbort’s only issue in his first Canucks season has been a lack of availability.
The veteran stay-at-home defender has missed protracted stretches this season due to injury and his father’s death, but when he’s been in the lineup, he’s been a steadying presence on the back end. His work squeezing onrushing forwards at the blue line and breaking up exits has been arguably the best on the team, and his feel for pressure and ability to make an accurate first pass — albeit not of the home run variety — has been missed in those games he’s been absent from.
Forbort has been limited, however, to just 16 games played and the Canucks have felt his absence given the composition of their blue line. If he can stay healthy and play regularly down the stretch, it would be a very welcome development.
Noah Juulsen: C+
32 GP, 0-0-0
The big question with Juulsen is whether his value on the penalty kill eclipses his negative even-strength impact.
Juulsen’s short-handed work is legitimate. He ranks second among Canucks defencemen in PK minutes per game, with solid chance and goal suppression metrics across the board.
It’s also undeniable, however, that he’s a major drag at even strength. During Juulsen’s even-strength shifts, the Canucks have controlled just 41.4 percent of shot attempts (the worst mark among all Vancouver defencemen) and have been outscored 20-11. He has been at the centre of some costly defensive mistakes that have ended up in the back of the net.
Juulsen deserves some slack because he’s being deployed in a way tougher role than he’s accustomed to. He’d ordinarily be playing sheltered matchups in a limited third-pair-minutes role, but this season, he’s consistently dueled against opponents’ first and second lines because of Hronek’s injury.
PuckIQ’s data says Juulsen has spent 37 percent of his five-on-five ice time this season against “elite” competition, which is the second-highest mark among all Canucks blueliners. So yes, Juulsen has noticeably struggled at many points, but it’s hard to criticize him too harshly because we’d expect any No. 7 defenceman to underperform in non-sheltered minutes.
Erik Brännström appears to have lost the faith of the Canucks coaches. (Bob Frid / Imagn Images)
Erik Brännström: C
28 GP, 3-5-8
Acquired as a salary-cap throw-in to the Tucker Poolman trade, Brännström opened his Canucks career with a sensational first five weeks. He then followed that up with a difficult five weeks in which his defensive form listed severely.
And now, Brännström has lost all trust with Canucks coaches and isn’t really a priority to get back into the lineup despite the club’s puck-moving issues.
It’s not that Brännström should earn another look because he’s a massive difference-maker, it’s that Vancouver’s lack of speed and puck-moving skill on the back end has occasionally seemed mission-critical over the past six weeks or so. Brännström is one of Vancouver’s very few options to address a significant gap in its team construction, but his defensive fall-off has been sharp enough that coach Rick Tocchet and assistant coach Adam Foote (who runs the defence) don’t appear to have enough faith in his defensive game to give him another look.
Ultimately the first job for depth players of Brännström’s stature is to earn minutes. And while the talented young Swedish defender has put some good things on tape this season — the Canucks have been at their best with Hughes, Hronek and Brännström in the lineup at the same time — defensive inconsistency appears to have cost him the everyday role he’d looked to have carved out in October and November.
16-7-6, .903 SV%
Can you imagine how many points back the Canucks would be of a playoff spot had they not signed Kevin Lankinen in the middle of training camp? The 29-year-old Finn has posted a respectable .903 save percentage. He’s saved seven goals above expected, which ranks 17th best among all NHL goaltenders who’ve played at least 20 games this season.
Lankinen’s 16-7-6 record would translate to a 107-point pace over 82 games. In non-Lankinen starts, the Canucks have a 3-6-4 record, the equivalent of a 63-point pace.
2-2-3, .883 SV%
Thatcher Demko has played well but has still looked like a player shaking off the rust following a severe and unprecedented tear in his knee and a protracted absence as he rehabbed that ailment.
The good news is, stylistically, very little is different about Demko’s game. He remains athletic and explosive and continues to do almost all the physically demanding technical stuff he did before sustaining the injury. Demko is probably too good not to figure it out and return to his usual dominant self before long.
Artūrs Šilovs: D
1-4-1, .847 SV%
The shine has worn off from Artūrs Šilovs’ Cinderella performance in the playoffs last spring. Šilovs was given the nod as the club’s starter in the season opener against Calgary but it’s been downhill since then. He was one of the main culprits behind the club’s blown 4-1 lead that ended in a 6-5 overtime loss in Game 1.
Šilovs only won one of his six starts. He’s especially had challenges tracking shots from long distances through traffic. He simply hasn’t performed at an NHL-calibre level.
(Top photo of Quinn Hughes: Alex Goodlett / Getty Images)
