Elite hockey players constantly push their own limitations and turn relative weaknesses into strengths.
We’ve seen that with Elias Pettersson, who turned a shot that was touted as average when drafted in 2017 into one of the most lethal in the NHL by mastering his technique.
For Quinn Hughes, playing away from the puck in the NHL was going to be his steepest learning curve. Sure enough, he made defensive mistakes in his five-game cameo last year, particularly when it came to defending the rush.
Forwards sliced past Hughes through the middle or beat him on the outside — it looked like there would be growing pains.
Fast forward 12 months, however, and data shows that the 20-year-old phenom, best known for his scintillating offensive tools, is already the Canucks’ best neutral zone defender.
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He’s turned an early weakness into a strength. And all it took was one year.
Forwards entered the offensive zone with possession of the puck against Hughes on a team-low 54.9 percent of entry attempts in the 20-game sample Corey Sznajder and I tracked.
If there’s a watershed moment that spurred this growth, it might have occurred during the season opener against Edmonton. In the first period, Leon Draisaitl was powering down the wing and beat Hughes on the outside when the Canucks defenceman tried to rub out Draisaitl against the boards.
As Hughes would explain to colleague Thomas Drance, that was a reminder to stymie forwards using his feet and swift stick rather than by engaging physically where his diminutive frame would be a disadvantage.
“With bigger guys, you’ve got to use your feet, you can’t lean on them,” Hughes told Drance in October.
“Like with Draisaitl, I leaned on him there towards the end of the first,” Hughes continued. “I just have to keep using my feet there. I think after that, (I did) a really good job with it.”
Top players learn and adjust. They rarely make the same mistake twice. The next time Draisaitl came at Hughes, he took a different, more conservative approach and used his stick to break up the play.
A more conservative approach with his footwork means that Hughes doesn’t have the stopping power to outright break up plays at the line as often as he might like but he’s become really good at protecting the middle and forcing puck carriers to the outside where it’s harder to make a play. This is evidenced in the fact that the opposition made a successful pass upon entering the zone on just 20.6 percent of entry attempts.
Another asset that’s emerged in Hughes’ arsenal is his recovery ability on the backcheck. As an offensive defenceman, Hughes will get caught up the ice from time to time, but I’ve been really impressed with how well he darts back, gains inside position and uses enough leverage to disrupt forwards.
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This was most apparent in a February game against the Leafs when he recovered in time to stop one of the league’s most dangerous rush players, William Nylander, on a partial-breakaway not once, but twice. On the first occasion, Hughes stepped into Nylander’s route and got a stick on the puck to deflect the backhand attempt out of play.
On the second rush, Nylander was driving on his forehand, meaning that Hughes couldn’t use his stick. Hughes adapted and leaned into Nylander hard enough so that the Leafs forward lost control of the puck and crashed into the net.
Hughes’ emergence as an above average neutral zone defender notwithstanding, though, the Canucks as a whole have struggled in this department. An inability to contain opponents off the rush is a crucial part of Vancouver’s defensive woes.
Rank | Team | Pass Against% |
|---|---|---|
22 | 25.4% | |
23 | 25.6% | |
24 | 25.6% | |
25 | 25.7% | |
26 | 25.8% | |
27 | 26.5% | |
28 | 26.8% | |
29 | 26.8% | |
30 | 27.8% | |
31 | 28.9% |
Lower numbers are better
Rushes where a team can enter the zone with control and make a subsequent pass are twice as likely to result in a scoring chance or goal compared to regular possession entries are about four times more dangerous than dump-ins. The Canucks ranked 27th in the NHL in preventing these possession entry+pass sequences during 1-on-1 situations at the blue line according to Sznajder’s dataset.
So which Vancouver defencemen have been most unreliable at defending the rush?
Player | Carry-In % ▲ | Pass Against % |
|---|---|---|
54.90% | 20.59% | |
58.27% | 22.05% | |
59.82% | 27.68% | |
60.40% | 25.74% | |
68.27% | 25.96% | |
68.75% | 22.50% |
Lower is better, League average carry-in against % is around 59 percent
Right now, Hughes is the only Canucks defenceman who can be labelled definitively above average.
Following him, there’s Alex Edler, who I believe would be worse off if we had a sample of more than 20 games. His lack of foot speed means he concedes a lot of space at the blue line. Not only has he been considerably below average in Sznajder’s dataset the last three years but there’s been a declining pattern; in 2018-19 he was one of the league’s worst rush defenders (76.5 percent carry-in against rate).
Viz courtesy CJ Turtoro
The decent zone entry denial numbers Edler posted this year are likely misleading. And even if they’re not, we can make a pretty safe bet based on his track record that it’s unlikely to carry over next year.
Chris Tanev was an elite neutral zone defender in his prime and while he’s retained some of those skills, his numbers have been in decline the past three years or so as well. He’s probably around league average, if not slightly below when considering the pass against rate.
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Tyler Myers is almost even with Troy Stecher in allowing a carry-in on an ugly 68.3 percent of entry attempts, but his ballooned passing rate makes Myers arguably the Canucks’ worst rush defender. It’s quite remarkable considering his long reach and adept skating skills.
But in watching the tape, you can see that he often stops moving his feet, which can leave him susceptible to getting beat on the outside.
The root of his defensive issues really comes down to his passive gap control — watch how much time and space Sam Gagner has to make a play in the clip below, for example.
Similarly, Stecher’s has been poor defending the rush the past two years after only being slightly below average earlier in his career.
Jordie Benn’s results are the first sign that some of these struggles could be a function of the team’s style and the well-documented lack of forward support. His rush defence results had been above average but those numbers eroded in Vancouver. It’s tough to say how much of that is Benn underperforming versus the environment around him.
To recap: Hughes has excelled in the neutral zone, Tanev was around league average, Myers, Edler and Stecher’s numbers are weak and Benn is a question mark. It’s certainly not a pretty picture.
Going back to Hughes, his success shows how quickly he can adjust and overcome challenges and that bodes well for areas like in-zone defence that he still needs to refine.
Meanwhile, Hughes can already claim to be a strong neutral zone defender. That’s not something most 20-year-old NHL defencemen can say.
(Photo: Claus Andersen / Getty Images)
