How will the Canucks’ top two defensive pairings look?

The Vancouver Canucks revamped their defence during the offseason, but how might the team’s top two pairings look in 2020-21?

The Vancouver Canucks lost two major pieces of their backend following the departures of Chris Tanev and Troy Stecher in the offseason. Thankfully, the team made up for it by acquiring Nate Schmidt from the Golden Knights, who can provide Vancouver with another elite puck-mover from the blueline.

These changes signal that the Canucks’ defence will look vastly different this season than it did in 2019-20, which is why we need to figure out who will play together in the top four.

First pairing

After a historic rookie season, Quinn Hughes is a lock to be on the team’s first pairing and might be the single best defender in the entire Canadian division.

With Alex Edler also being a left-hand shot, that leaves Tyler Myers and Schmidt as the candidates to pair alongside Hughes.

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Schmidt shoots left as well, but he has mainly been deployed on the right over the past few seasons, which is the side he’s more comfortable playing on.

It might be tempting to have Hughes and Schmidt create an uber duo on the top pair, but it makes more sense to separate them. This allows the Canucks to have an elite puck-mover on the ice for 45 minutes a game, which will increase Vancouver’s possession time and create more scoring chances.

Moreover, Hughes and Myers have displayed chemistry in the past. According to Natural Stat Trick, the duo controlled shot attempts a whopping 56.39% of the time while posting an expected goals rate of 57.94% at five on five. These numbers weren’t produced over a small sample size, either, as they spent over 326 minutes together in those situations.

The one caveat to this is that Hughes and Myers had an offensive zone faceoff percentage of 83.57%, which naturally gave them more opportunities to control possession and generate scoring chances.

They won’t reach that number again, but Travis Green will likely keep using them in an offensive role, so there shouldn’t be too big of a dropoff either. Hughes is also still improving, so there’s no need to be concerned about his fit with Myers on the first pair.

Second pairing

With Hughes and Myers on the top unit, this leaves Edler and Schmidt to form the team’s second pairing.

This is a natural fit on paper, as Schmidt is an offensive-minded defender who loves to jump in on the rush while Edler has morphed into a stay at home blueliner due to his declined footspeed in recent years.

They will likely become the Canucks’ go-to shutdown pair, which is a role that both players are familiar with. Using tracking data courtesy of PuckIQ, Edler spent 35.6% of his time last year playing against elite competition, which was second on the team among defenders only behind Tanev.

Schmidt spent even more time matched up with elite opposition at 40.9%, which was also second only to his former partner Brayden McNabb amongst all Golden Knights defensemen in 2019-20.

Simply put, Edler is the Canucks defender who’s most comparable to McNabb, and Schmidt should be quite comfortable playing alongside the veteran. The former Golden Knight will reprise his role as the puck-mover on the second pair while also being tasked to match up against the most dangerous opponents on a nightly basis, all while doing it alongside a sturdy defensive-minded blueliner.

With that said, don’t be surprised to see Hughes and Schmidt sharing the ice when the Canucks are down a goal late in games, as this will give the team an offensive boost and a higher chance of forcing overtime. Outside of this scenario, Vancouver’s top two pairings will likely consist of Hughes-Myers and Edler-Schmidt.

Personally, I think that the Canucks’ top four has been vastly improved due to the addition of Schmidt, even though the team’s depth might still be lacking. Comment down below if you agree!