Atheltics Article:
So far, Quinn Hughes is the best player from the 2018 NHL Draft. Here’s why
The early years of Jim Benning’s tenure yielded some of the leanest seasons in Canucks history.
Vancouver watched as the beloved core from the 2011 Stanley Cup Final team succumbed to Father Time, enduring years of pain and patiently waiting to see light at the end of the tunnel.
That light has finally emerged, and it appears brighter than ever.
Brock Boeser, Elias Pettersson and Quinn Hughes have given the Canucks three consecutive rookie All-Stars. Boeser’s been a first-line winger since Day 1. In Pettersson, the organization has found its franchise centre — a slam-dunk top-10 player in the NHL and very likely the best skater from the 2017 draft class.
Meanwhile, Hughes, selected in 2018, gives the Canucks a chance at owning the best player in two consecutive drafts. You see, while Rasmus Dahlin was billed as a generational defenceman a full year before the draft, it’s Hughes who has been the best defenceman from that class.
There are other players from the 2018 draft who have been superb — like Carolina’s Andrei Svechnikov, who’s on a 72-point pace — but I believe a No. 1 defenceman will almost always be more valuable than a first-line winger, and that’s why the focus will be on Hughes versus Buffalo’s Dahlin.
Believing that Hughes has been the better player so far isn’t an indictment of Dahlin, who had a dynamite 44-point campaign as an 18-year-old. He’s lived up to the hype despite a rockier sophomore season than people anticipated. And it’s only been a year and a half since the 2018 draft — Dahlin has physical tools in his 6-foot-3 frame that Hughes will never possess, and it wouldn’t surprise me in the least if he ascends as the NHL’s best blueliner in his prime.
Give me the option long term and I’d bet on Dahlin over Hughes.
All those caveats don’t change the fact, however, that Hughes has outperformed the first overall pick early in their careers by virtually every objective measure.
The quickest and simplest measure people tend to look at is point production, and while I’d argue that it can be overrated in assessing defencemen, it’s the first category where Hughes comes out on top, although it’s very close. Dahlin has notched three goals and 28 points through 41 games (56-point pace) this season, compared with Hughes’ five goals and 34 points in 48 games (58-point pace).
That said, it’s not the offensive side of things where I believe Hughes has created an edge. The 20-year-old’s robust two-way play has given head coach Travis Green the confidence to deploy him as a top-pair, shutdown defenceman — trusted with more minutes and tasked with tougher matchups compared with Dahlin, who has played less in relatively sheltered minutes.
Quinn Hughes vs. Rasmus Dahlin, career numbers
Statistic Hughes Dahlin
Average TOI 21:16 20:27
TOI% against elite competition 33.4% 23.5%
Points per game 0.70 0.59
Shot share (CF%) 53.7% 50.7%
Scoring chance share (SCF%) 51.7% 49.6%
Expected goal share (xGF%) 53.8% 49.2%
Competition data courtesy of PuckIQ
In the chart above, I’ve collected career numbers for Hughes and Dahlin. Under normal circumstances, I would have compared only their sophomore seasons because Hughes didn’t play in the NHL as an 18-year-old, but I expanded the window because Dahlin was much better in his rookie season.
What the table undersells is Hughes’ midseason maturation into a No. 1 defenceman. The time-on-ice differences are less than a minute over their careers, but it’s worth noting that Hughes has averaged just north of 23 minutes since December, while Dahlin is logging just over 19 minutes. This has stayed true even with the return of Alex Edler — Hughes has surpassed him as the Canucks’ top left-shot defenceman in ice time and in how often he plays against the other team’s best players.
Matchups-wise, the former seventh overall pick is among the 64th percentile of NHL defencemen (top 36 percent) in how many of his minutes have been against elite competition through his career. Dahlin, on the other hand, is in the 38th percentile in terms of quality of competition overall and has seen even more sheltered minutes in his second year (24th percentile for 2019-20).
Another area where Hughes holds a decisive leg up is in how he’s driven play at even strength. Regardless of whether you look at shot attempts, scoring chances or expected goals, Hughes has tilted the ice in his team’s favour to a greater extent at five-on-five. It’s definitely worth considering that Dahlin’s been saddled with subpar partners at points in his career. Once we adjust for that, it becomes abundantly clear that he’s been a formidable five-on-five performer in his own right.
SKATR chart courtesy Bill Comeau
Dahlin’s underlying numbers look very promising once we focus on the two-way impact he’s had on his teammates, but Hughes has risen to exclusive company by those same metrics — in the 97th percentile of defencemen for his impact on shot-attempt differential and in the 98th percentile for his impact on expected goal share.
In laymen’s terms, Dahlin has done an impressive job of helping his team outshoot and out-chance the opposition when he’s been on the ice, but Hughes is already among the league’s elite defencemen in this regard.
A big reason Hughes owns such gaudy numbers and why Green has trusted him with a critical workload is his defensive impact. The Florida native uses a combination of excellent skating, smart reads and an active stick to strip players of the puck. Combine that with his disposition to advance the puck up ice with possession and you have a player who rarely spends time defending in his own zone.
“The first thing you notice is how Quinn moves his feet,” said Tyler Myers. “He’s so mobile, versatile that he’s able to escape certain plays, and it’s a huge help on breakouts.”
Hughes has an exceptionally high panic threshold where he’s able to hang on to the puck, draw forecheckers and make plays under heavy pressure — an asset that opens up space for his teammates in transition. Watch below how he attracts three forecheckers and still makes a play up the ice.
“He’s got that skill set where he can bait a guy and then spin off of him, escape him,” Myers said. “It’s one of his strengths, he uses his feet so well. That certainly opens up space for other guys when he makes an escape move and passes it over.”
Whether Hughes makes an outlet pass right away or carries the puck on his own, the constant is he always knows where his teammates and the opposition are. He rarely skates himself into trouble.
“You got to have patience in your game, you can’t just know what you’re going to do (on the retrieval) without knowing the situation,” said Hughes. “You’ve got to get your head up, cleanly pick up the puck and then see what opens up. But sometimes you know what you’re going to do before you get the puck, you have a good idea (of your options).”
Hughes can afford to see what opens up because few in the NHL can maneuver through tight spaces the way he can. So often, it looks like he’s skated himself into trouble or he’s in a vulnerable position, and he’ll turn on a dime and burn the forechecker.
https://i.imgur.com/SiS2qpF.mp4The most impressive part, however, is how rarely he makes an egregious error. His mature decision-making is a standout trait.
“Sometimes you just got to know when to make a play and when not to,” Hughes said. “It just depends on the forecheck pressure and what they’re bringing. Communicating is huge, you can’t see everything at once, so you lean on your teammates and I feel like we’re on the same page so it’s easy to know where guys are going to be.”
Said Myers: “He makes a lot of plays all over the ice, but it doesn’t seem like any of them have too much risk. For a young guy to show that and display a skill set like that, he’s ahead of his years.”
Getting back to the Hughes and Dahlin comparison, one lens we can use to measure the holistic value of each player is Dom Luszczyszyn’s Game Score model, which attempts to summarize a player’s performance with just one number. It takes into account a combination of point production, impact on driving play and penalty differential.
Hughes vs. Dahlin Game Score value above replacement
Season Hughes Dahlin
2019-20 1.51 wins 0.31 wins
2018-19 - 1.31 wins
Total 1.51 wins (48 GP) 1.61 wins (123 GP)
Hughes has been worth 1.51 wins through 48 games this season — the type of impact you’d expect from a No. 1 defenceman and one that crushes Dahlin’s impact this season and bests his rookie season. In all, Dahlin has provided 0.1 wins more value in Dom’s model despite dressing in 75 more games than Hughes.
Again, this shouldn’t take anything away from Dahlin, who’s been excellent for a teenager and remains six months younger than Hughes. To make a final conclusion on one player being better than the other long-term two years after they were drafted would be a grave mistake (keep in mind how long it took Victor Hedman to blossom).
That said, Hughes is already on track as one of the NHL’s better No. 1 defencemen — projected as 12th-best through Dom’s model.
Top 20 NHL defencemen
Per Dom Luszczyszyn’s GSVA model:
Player Team Age Wins
Victor Hedman Lightning 29 3.49
Dougie Hamilton Hurricanes 26 3.47
Roman Josi Predators 29 3.45
Alex Pietrangelo Blues 30 3.09
Kris Letang Penguins 32 3.07
John Carlson Capitals 30 2.89
Ryan Ellis Predators 29 2.77
Mark Giordano Flames 36 2.74
Torey Krug Bruins 28 2.60
Shea Weber Canadiens 34 2.57
Shea Theodore G Knights 24 2.57
Quinn Hughes Canucks 20 2.56
Erik Karlsson Sharks 29 2.55
Jared Spurgeon Wild 30 2.55
Cale Makar Avalanche 21 2.54
Charlie McAvoy Bruins 22 2.37
Morgan Rielly M Leafs 25 2.23
Miro Heiskanen Stars 20 2.20
Mikhail Sergachev Lightning 21 2.12
John Klingberg Stars 27 1.95
Compared with Dahlin, Hughes plays a bigger role, faces tougher matchups and produces more points while also being the superior five-on-five play driver. Dahlin is more likely to be the better player in their primes and finish with a more illustrious career, but it can’t be disputed that Hughes has the definitive edge so far as the better defenceman and probably also as the best player, period, from the 2018 draft class.