This is the 2025-26 edition — an archived read. Read the 2026-27 report →
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.
| Season | Team | GP | G | A | PTS | +/- | PIM | PP | SH | GW | S | S% | TOI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018-19 | VAN | 5 | 0 | 3 | 3 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 6 | 0.0 | 18:05 |
| 2019-20 | VAN | 68 | 8 | 45 | 53 | -10 | 22 | 3 | 0 | 2 | 126 | 6.3 | 21:53 |
| 2020-21 | VAN | 56 | 3 | 38 | 41 | -24 | 22 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 98 | 3.1 | 22:48 |
| 2021-22 | VAN | 76 | 8 | 60 | 68 | +10 | 28 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 150 | 5.3 | 25:15 |
| 2022-23 | VAN | 78 | 7 | 69 | 76 | +15 | 34 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 154 | 4.5 | 25:40 |
| 2023-24 | VAN | 82 | 17 | 75 | 92 | +38 | 38 | 5 | 0 | 2 | 199 | 8.5 | 24:41 |
| 2024-25 | VAN | 68 | 16 | 60 | 76 | +2 | 29 | 4 | 0 | 3 | 192 | 8.3 | 25:44 |
| 2025-26 so far | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — |
| Career | — | 433 | 59 | 350 | 409 | +31 | 175 | 14 | 0 | 8 | 925 | 6.4 | 24:22 |
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.
54.3 per cent of the expected goals at five-on-five, the 81st percentile. His ice went 63-54 against an expectation of 54.17-45.68 — 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 236 goals. The question hanging over the franchise is whether he intends to stay, and nothing in this edition matters more to it.
What kind of player
The searchable half of the report. The first group is computed from the season's own data; the rest are read out of the prose above, and each one carries the sentence that produced it. A subject the report never raised is simply absent.
- measuredcomputed here from the season's own data
- a strengthread out of the prose, and claimed
- he lacks itraised, and he does not have it
Each computed tag also says how well its measure holds up from one season to the next, because a tag describes a season that has finished and a reader will assume it predicts the one coming. Some do and some do not, and the gap is wide: five-on-five workload repeats well, scoring late does not repeat at all.
- hard-shot· beats a goaltender from range
10 of 212 attempts from 40 feet or beyond, 4.7%, 94th percentile among defencemen
Season to season, this measure repeats weakly (0.21) · 16% keep it
- drives-play· the shot clock turns his way while he is out there
54.3% of the expected goals at five-on-five with him on, 46.2% for his club in the minutes he sat: +8.1, 98th percentile among defencemen
Season to season, this measure repeats moderately (0.39) · 29% keep it
- workhorse· carries the load at even strength
19:11 a game at five-on-five, 96th percentile among defencemen
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.78) · 58% keep it
- sheltered· is started in the attacking end
65% of his end-zone starts in the attacking end, 99th percentile among defencemen
Season to season, this measure repeats well (0.66) · 47% keep it
“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.”
“**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.”
“He does not clear his crease, he does not win a battle against a heavy forward, and he never will.”
“He does not clear his crease, he does not win a battle against a heavy forward, and he never will.”
“**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.”
“Seventh overall in 2018 and **433 games with 350 assists**, a Norris Trophy in 2024, and the captaincy since that season.”
“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.”
The numbers underneath
On the ice
Five-on-five, 2024-25 · 1,305 minutes
- Expected goals
- 54.3%
- 87th pct
- Shot attempts
- 56.1%
- 93rd pct
share of the chances while he was out there
share of the attempts while he was out there
Goals while he was on the ice: 63 for, 54 against. Expected: 54.2 and 45.7.
The eye and the numbers
HindsightThe two rank him within 1 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.
Tracked
NHL Edge, 2024-25 · 68 games
- Top speed
- 24.6 mph
- 100th pct
- Bursts over 20 mph
- 1.59 a game
- Distance
- 3.79 miles a game
- Hardest shot
- 95.6 mph
- 82nd pct
fastest he was clocked all season; the league's average best is 21.6
how often he reaches that speed, not how fast he goes
skated, all strengths
one shot; the league's average best is 89.7
A top speed is a season's best, and a man who takes more shifts gets more tries at one; the percentile is the feed's own, against every skater, and says less between a top-pair defenceman and a fourth-line wing than it does between two men in the same job. The counts are shown per game for the same reason.
Usual linemates
2024-25 · 1305 minutes at five-on-five
- Filip Hronek45%
- Tyler Myers29%
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 54.3% — 5.2 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
| Teammate | Together | Him apart | Mate apart |
|---|---|---|---|
| Filip Hronek | 55.7% | 53.1% | 50.8% |
| Brock Boeser | 50.3% | 56.3% | 45.2% |
| Jake DeBrusk | 56.8% | 53.1% | 41.7% |
55.7% together, 53.1% for him apart and 50.8% 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.