Canucks: Quinn Hughes needs to improve his struggling defensive game

After a historic rookie campaign, Vancouver Canucks defenceman Quinn Hughes has had a strong offensive start to the 2020-21 season, as he currently leads all blueliners in points.

His defensive game, however, leaves a lot to be desired.

The entire team is currently bleeding chances in their own end, and it feels like opposing teams are currently averaging five breakaways per period against Vancouver. Even so, Hughes can’t be excused from his horrendous defensive numbers, which are not only among the worst on the Canucks, but in the entire league this season.

Hughes’ ugly defensive metrics

*All stats were taken before February 11’s game against the Flames

According to Natural Stat Trick, through the first 16 games of the season, Hughes has the highest goals against per 60 minutes (GA/60) at five on five among all Canucks skaters who have played in more than one game, as Vancouver currently gives up 5.41 goals every hour with him on the ice.

In comparison, he had a more respectable GA/60 last year of 2.86, although that was accomplished while skating beside Chris Tanev for most of the season.

More from The Canuck Way

• Which team won the Bo Horvat trade?
• What to expect from newcomers Anthony Beauvillier, Aatu Räty
• Back to the future: How the skate uniforms became a regular Canucks’ feature night
• Canucks kick off 2023 with disappointing 6-2 loss to Islanders
• 2nd period penalty trouble sinks Canucks in 4-2 loss against Winnipeg

The most worrying aspect about Hughes’ current struggles is that his offensive brilliance hasn’t been able to make up for his defensive deficiencies. Vancouver has only scored 13 goals this year at five on five with Hughes on the ice while given up a whopping 23 against. Now, he has been slightly unlucky in that departure since his expected goals percentage sits at 41.14% but his actual goals percentage is only 36.11%.

However, even if we factor in some unlucky bounces, Hughes’ recent performances are still a far cry from what he accomplished last year when he sported an expected goals and actual goals rate of over 50%. Again, there’s no doubt that Tanev’s departure hurts, but this is an alarming dropoff nonetheless.

The biggest thing plaguing Hughes currently is the types of chances that the Canucks are giving up with him on the ice, which can be seen using graphs provided by HockeyViz.

The graphs above show the quality of shots that Vancouver is conceding with Hughes on the ice. The red areas indicate that the team is allowing more shots from those parts of the ice than league average, and it’s pretty clear that Hughes hasn’t done a great job of preventing dangerous scoring chances in front of the Canucks’ goal.

A factor that might be causing this is Hughes’ diminutive size. Standing at only 5’10”, the defender lacks the strength to consistently win battles in front of the net and often gets overpowered by larger players.

Instead of getting into physical battles, Hughes should rather focus on employing his hockey IQ and stick work to break up players and stop opponents from getting set up in front of Vancouver’s goal. This is something that has been lacking in Hughes’ game so far in the season, and I’m sure he’ll be able to bounce back soon. Moreover, there have also been instances when he has thrown some sloppy passes to teammates, which are self-inflicted mistakes that can be fixed.

My biggest concern is finding Hughes a solid defensive partner so that he doesn’t need to be too concerned about the defensive end of the ice. Even if he does start making smarter plays and cleaning up his own mistakes, Hughes will never be a shutdown player due to his size.

Jordie Benn has done an admirable job so far in Travis Hamonic’s stead, but neither player will be able to replace Tanev’s impact. If the Canucks truly want to maximize Hughes’ abilities, they’ll need to find another shutdown defenceman who’ll let the 21-year-old roam freely.

So, what do you make of Hughes’ defensive struggles so far, Canucks fans? How would you go about fixing these issues? Let us know in the comments below!