i think just by how the game works a forward has to be mcjesus or close to it to have the impact a 1D has, or a 2007 luongo/bubble demko-level goalie
so yeah as far as i’ve seen nobody has tilted the ice on this team the way hughes has, other than maybe the very best of luongo and demko, and even then they didn’t tilt the ice, per se, they just sealed off on end of it
all due respect to 1994 bure, 2002 nas/tuzzi, and 2010 sedins, current hughes is just a level above in terms of how he impacts the entire ice and makes every single player on with him better. like, when you’re under pressure you can’t just bail out by passing it to bure and then assume he’s going to make two or three quick pivots and then effortlessly skate the puck to safety, or the sedins as great as they were as playmakers or nas/tuzzi as excellent as they were on the rush aren’t going to auto advance the puck two lines every single time it touches their stick.
which is also to say, can you believe we were a team for almost 50 years before the hockey gods gave us a true 1D? but man hughes is making up for all those years without one.