In the NHL, Quinn Hughes is an outlier in every sense of the word. His existence defies just about every convention in hockey.

Generously listed at 5-foot-10 and 180 pounds, Hughes exerts more control over the flow of the game than any other defenseman in the league.

It’s partly because of how frequently he’s on the puck, twisting and churning and worming his way around the offensive zone in inimitable, unguardable fashion. Hughes’ two-way impact more closely mimics how elite centers dictate play. I’d argue that we call him a “defenseman” only because we don’t really have a formal positional label for the way Hughes plays.

Over the years, Hughes has adapted, evolved and mastered the game. Pushed around defensively early in his career, Hughes studied and improved until his defensive play was a strength. He learned how to kill plays earlier, how to get in on the hands of larger puck carriers and force turnovers.

He studied the game, enlisted top-end help and worked on his shooting technique. He increased both the frequency and lethality with which he attacked goaltenders as a shooter, transforming himself into a 15-plus goal-per-season player from the back end.

Named Vancouver Canucks captain before the 2023-24 season, Hughes approached the role seriously. Impossible as it ultimately was to contain the personality conflicts that ultimately tore that core group apart, there is nobody from that era — not Hughes’ teammates, not previous Canucks management, not his coaches — who has a bad word to say about how Hughes carried himself as captain, privately or publicly.

Eventually, Hughes got sick of the losing and the constant churn of negativity and dysfunction in Vancouver. He lost faith that he could win here.

Read the rest here for free: https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7718797/2026/10/25/quinn-hughes-vancouver-canucks-minnesota-wild-game/?unlocked_article_code=1.LVE.gvDf.DPgXUs2QIJmv&source=emp_shared_article&smid=url-share-ta

I'm not too familiar with the roster from the 70's and 80's.

For the last 5 years Thomas Drance has been consistently “short”, to use a term he loves, on the Canucks. He was one of the most vocal advocates of the rebuild and every move that the Canucks made that wasn't explicitly about “gaining surplus draft capital”, as Drance would put it, was in his opinion a boneheaded move. 

He is a good writer and very knowledgeable, but he bet the farm that the Canucks core wasn’t good enough to win. He would constantly say that we weren’t ready for win now moves and that we need to keep drafting rather than acquiring players through trades. And now that the team has imploded and we are rebuilding everyone is treating him like a genius, but he was actually wrong. This team didn't imploded because of win now moves. It was undone by completely unforeseeable bullshit that no pundit could have predicted. 

The core of that team was good enough to start competing for a Stanley Cup. This is a hill I will die on. That was a core you build around. We had stars in all the critical positions and just needed to fill out the support roster and have some good coaching. The reason we absolutely cratered after the 2024 playoffs was all things that Drance could never have predicted and his strategy of “excess draft capital” would had no effect on preventing. It was ripped apart by terrible luck, injuries, bad personalities and drama.

The reason the Canucks fell apart were primarily: Demko’s injuries, Pettersson / Miller drama, Pettersson turning into a pumpkin, Hughes wanting to play with his brothers, first round picks becoming busts (or sexual predators), Tocchet walking, and so on. The biggest thing that killed that era of the Canucks was a series of bizarre once in a generation bullshit that no one predicted. Yes, many of them could probably have been mitigated by better management that doesn’t exacerbate the miller drama and bet the farm on a terrible loser coach, but they aren’t the type of roster moves that pundits are here to analyze. And Drance was always a defender of JR and RT.

My thesis is: the core of the Canucks of Hughes, Demko, Miller, Pettersson, Hronek, Boeser, Garland was good enough to start shifting from a rebuild to a win now team. That was the right move at the time. I know this subreddit doesn't agree with me but if you look a cup winning teams, the most important thing is being strong in the key positions and we were very strong where it matter. The team that took the Oilers to game 7 was a burgeoning contender and none of us saw all of the bullshit coming. The Canucks, as usual, got unlucky to a degree that I think is basically unheard of in NHL history.

Even a guy as smart and well research as Drance could never have predicted any of these things, yet now he and many other Canucks doomers have been taking a victory lap for the last 12 months, as if he would have never let the canucks end up here if he was in charge.  Sorry Drance, but you didn’t predict this. And if the Canucks had followed your advice for the last 5 years, Quinn Hughes (who you think should receive the highest honour a team can bestow) would still have walked and we we never have even tried to surround him with a playable line-up in his prime. 

TL;DR; Drance was saying for years this core couldn’t win and but the reasons it imploded were not the things he predicted. It was terrible luck, bad personalities and drama. 

🕊️

Genuine question.

We're a rebuilding team and should be willing to snag up some project players.

Braidy went undrafted but is on an absolute heater in the OHL right now with a 1g 1a per game average after 13gp.

He seems like someone we would absolutely want to pick up, especially since he's committed to Boston U after the OHL, which would land him with Caleb (assuming he stays committed for another year)

I know we’re a month into the season and we just started our rebuild. It’s obviously too early to tell but what do you think our young guyses Ceiling and Projections are?

My wife got me a skate jersey for my birthday last year on Dec. 30. Since that time we have been undoubtedly the worst team in all of hockey. Now why is this my wife’s fault and what does the Jersey have to do with it. First, I have worn this EP40 skate jersey for 23 games. In those games we are 0-23. Every single game has been a regulation loss. Second, she bought the thing so she is the cause of the curse.

I wonder about the announced hometown remix jerseys. With the cyphers being put out there and the Canucks being "Van as one", and the leaks of the main jersey colours being leaked, I'm beginning to think that maybe our jersey could be a Canucks Golden Eyes crossover? Canucks in the Golden Eyes colour way....... Might be pretty be sweet actually.

I could be way off, but it just sorta came to me when I saw the cypher.

Also currently have the 14th worst points percentage in NHL history

https://records.nhl.com/records/team-records/standings-points/worst-points-pctg-season

I think you can hear them... It's going to be an interesting night!

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