Armchair Hockey Scout Beta

This is the 2025-26 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →

43

Quinn Hughes

Vancouver Canucks Defense

Seventy-six points in 68 games at 25:44 a night from a 180-pound defenceman, and the ice he was on conceded fourteen goals more than the chances said it should.

SeasonTeamGPGAPTS+/-PIMPPSHGWSS%TOI
2018-19VAN50330200060.018:05
2019-20VAN6884553-10223021266.321:53
2020-21VAN5633841-2422000983.122:48
2021-22VAN7686068+10280011505.325:15
2022-23VAN7876976+15342001544.525:40
2023-24VAN82177592+38385021998.524:41
2024-25VAN68166076+2294031928.325:44
2025-26 so far
Career43359350409+3117514089256.424:22

This Season So Far

The 2025-26 season has not started. The empty row above is his, and both it and this paragraph fill in on their own from the morning after he first plays: what he has done, what it is worth against his own last season, and the run he is on when the two disagree.

Last Season

16 goals and 60 assists in 68 games — 76 points at 25:44 a night, the largest assignment on the club, plus-2, with 4 power-play goals and 3 game-winners on 192 shots. He missed fourteen games to injury.

53.4 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five, the 81st percentile. His ice went 41-60 against an expectation of 52.29-45.61 — eleven goals of scoring missing and fourteen conceded above expectation, which behind a goaltending group that finished 27th in the league is not a thing he did.

The Finesse Game

The skating is the best of any defenceman in the league and it is not an argument. He changes direction at full speed without losing the puck, he escapes a forecheck by turning into it, and he is essentially impossible to pressure in his own zone.

192 attempts at a median of 50 feet with 70 per cent from beyond 40, and 16 goals from it — a very high conversion for that distribution. 60 assists in 68 games is the number: he walks the line, he holds the puck until a killing box commits, and he throws passes that arrive where a forward is going.

The Physical Game

5-10 and 180 pounds and among the smallest defencemen in the league playing twenty-six minutes a night. He does not clear his crease, he does not win a battle against a heavy forward, and he never will.

29 penalty minutes in 68 games. He defends entirely by anticipation and stick position — he gets to the puck before the contact is required, and when he does not there is no second answer. That has been the unanswered question about this blue line for six years and there is no version of him that solves it.

The Intangibles

Seventh overall in 2018 and 433 games with 350 assists, a Norris Trophy in 2024, and the captaincy since that season.

He is 26, the eldest of three brothers all playing in the league, and last season he produced 76 points in 68 games on a club that scored 224 goals. The question hanging over the franchise is whether he intends to stay, and nothing in this edition matters more to it.

The numbers underneath

On the ice

Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 1,305 minutes

Expected goals
53.4%
82nd pct

share of the chances while he was out there

Shot attempts
55.7%
93rd pct

share of the attempts while he was out there

Goals while he was on the ice: 41 for, 60 against. Expected: 52.3 and 45.6.

The eye and the numbers

Hindsight
Report
88th
Numbers
82nd

The two rank him within 6 points of one another. It was written for a back edition, with the seasons that followed already known. Neither the agreement nor the gap says anything about the eye, and this report is excluded from the club-level comparison for the same reason.

Both bars are percentiles among the 637 skaters in this edition with a report and enough ice time. The report bar ranks the mean of the grades above — 80 on their own scale — against every other report's mean. The numbers bar ranks his share of expected goals. A gap is a disagreement about where he belongs, not two scales talking past each other.

Usual linemates

2024-25 · 1305 minutes at five-on-five

Share of his five-on-five ice time spent alongside each player, measured from shift charts. Special teams are excluded: a power-play unit is not a line.

Why the numbers land there

Five-on-five, 2024-25

The club
VAN took 49.1% of the expected goals as a club. His own share is 53.4% — 4.3 above the club he did it on.
The role
First pair, 1,305 minutes at five-on-five — 91st percentile in ice time.

With and without

TeammateTogetherHim apartMate apart
Filip Hronek54.4%52.7%50.3%
Brock Boeser52.1%54.1%45.4%
Jake DeBrusk55.7%52.4%42.0%

54.4% together, 52.7% for him apart and 50.3% for Hronek apart. Hronek was worse away from him while his own share held — the pairing was doing more for Hronek than for him.

Expected-goal share while both were on the ice, and for each man in the minutes he played without the other. Apart is the pair subtracted from his own totals. It does not settle who was carrying whom — apart from each other, both were still playing with somebody — but it does say whether the share travelled when the pairing broke up.

Where he shoots from

goal on goal missed

301 unblocked shots in 2024-25, 16 of them goals. His median goal came from 49 feet. 8% of his shots came from inside twenty feet, 70% from beyond forty.