For a team that is 55 years old soon, is there a worse list of defenseman?

[Voight]

They’ve had good defensemen but not franchise defensemen.

Perfect way to put it IMO. People forget how good Hamhuis was for example; he made the 2014 Olympic team and was a top 20 defensemen for a couple of years.

Jovocop had Norris record of 6,6,15,16 in Vancouver.

 

[ManofSteel55]

Jeff Brown had solid eyebrows

I remember he smashed the glass with a shot once too. I don't think he was on the Canucks then though.


To the OP, I think Vancouver has had some good defensemen. Their early 2000s defense core was an important piece of that team, and they were dominant at times. They don't have much in terms of name value of superstar defensemen, but as EpochLink said above, they just haven't had any franchise level defensemen before Hughes.

Jovanovski was a beast in his prime. He absolutely was a number 1 defensemen.

 

[KirkAlbuquerque]

ohlund slander

 

[ManofSteel55]

Hughes is the first legit #1 tbh

Definitely worth pointing out for a team with a 50+ year history

First franchise player to be a defenseman maybe. Jovanovski was absolutely a #1. You could argue Edler, Ohlund and Lumme as well, although I'm not sure if I would back that argument or not without evaluating it more closely.

I also think it is absolutely fair for the Canuck fans to be really excited about Quinn Hughes. He's a star player, they should be excited about him.

 

[tanti9]

Did not read everything but, Jovocop to me was a monster and a #1 on the Canucks and probably others. He may taken himself out of the play at times but boy could he hit.

 

[benfranklin]

I’m pretty sure the list of teams that haven’t had a Norris winner is pretty long

Challenge accepted.

Ducks
Coyotes
Sabres
Hurricanes
Blue Jackets
Stars
Wild
Flyers
Kraken
Leafs
Knights
Jets

Can argue some of these are worse. The older ones Sabres (Housley/Dahlin), Flyers (Howe, Pronger, Desjardins, Timonen), and Leafs (Borje, Kaberle, Rielly) are pretty sad too.

 

[TheDawnOfANewTage]

This is next level pettiness, diggin into the dirt that hurts sorta pettiness.

 

[thecupismine]

The Canucks had solid blue lines from 1994-2012, then things fell off once the Benning era began.

We’ve never had an elite, number one guy, but the majority of those good teams did a really good job at doing the whole defense by committee thing with 4+ legit, top 4 dmen.

It’s been great seeing Hughes come through and how he can single handedly turn the tide of a game, but I’d hardly call any of the 2011 defensive group “trash” for example (except for maybe Ballard, who fell off as soon as he got here).