Objectively speaking, there's no denying it that Makar is the best offensive player at defense consistently in the league. It was always above everybody else (you could argue Karlsson at times, but he never played winning hockey). With that said, Makar's defense has never been otherworldly (never bad, but never elite in my opinion). He's had great partners to back him up.
Now with that said, Hughes was never on Makar's level for offense. I figured after year 2 he'd get there but he never did.
Until this year. This year he finally took that step forward offensively he should have taken but rather he focused his energy to learn the defensive side of the game after his 2nd year when called out (and rightfully so) on being bad defensively. When challenged, he stepped up to the plate and over several years significantly improved his defensive game. Last year Hughes was elite defensively, despite having absolutely nobody to play with. He was the only defender on the Canucks with positive defensive metrics and when EVERY OTHER CANUCKS DEFENDER played with him, they went from being negative defensive players to positive defensive players due to Hughes.
This year, he has that elite defensive capability from the past season and he has Makar level offense. He's without a doubt the best defender in the league thus far (Fox in my opinion is the only one close).
It's absolutely incredible to finally see him unlucky his potential because it was always there, he just never played with that risk after year 1. Now that he's comfortable with the defensive side of the game and having finally a competent partner, we are seeing him take those offensive risks he couldn't afford to in the past.
He's having a ridiculous season and in my opinion the most impressive one I've seen in this short sample size since Lidstrom.
