CANUCKS WITH BEST TOP 4 DEFENSE IN THE PACIFIC DIVISION
Heat. Heat. [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] What’s up, guys? Welcome to the line change. In this video, we’re going to be talking about and really asking the question, do the Conucks have the best top four defense pairings in the Pacific Division? Well, we’re going to tell you why we think they do. And yeah, so but before we get started, I want to give a quick shout out and thank you to my sponsor, Gast Art, maker of that incredible artwork you see behind me. And you guys can get your hands on some GasJ art by checking them out at gasjecart.com. You can also find them on Instagram at gasjack art. So, let’s go ahead and dive into this topic. Of course, we’re going to go over an article from our friends at Kox Army. This one’s written by Stephan Roget, someone we’ve uh dissected a lot of his articles on Kucks Army. He’s always got some great stuff. So, let’s go ahead and dive right into it. If we’re asking the question of who is the singular greatest defenseman in the Pacific Division right now, it’s one of those slam dunk automatic responses. It’s it’s Quinn Hughes of the Vancouver Conucks. And it’s not even close. In fact, we can safely go ahead and note that Hughes would also hold that distinction if he played in the in the Atlantic or the Metropolitan Divisions as well. His only current real competition for the title of top D or top D, sorry, is Kale Mar and he plays in the central. But if we extend the question beyond that to the entire top four various blue lines, do Hughes and the Canucks still come out on top against recent historical trends? The answer for the 2025 26 season seems to be yes. There’s a reason we’re focusing on the top four here. The bottom end of the Vancouver Blueland is still a little undetermined. Chances are best it’ll be some rotation of Derek Forward, Elias Patterson, Tom Willander, and Victor Mancini down there. But which in what order? And how frequently is yet to be decided. But the Vancouver top four is as rock solid as it’s been for the last couple of decades. Joining Hughes on the top pairing on the depth chart and most likely in real life is Philip Heronic. Coming in behind him is a newly acquired sorry newly acquired, newly signed and newly minted 3D Marcus Patterson. And then rounding out the quartet is Tyler Myers. At least until that role is hopefully uh usurped by one of Mancini. So, while we’re on the subject, how does this 202526 connects top four stack up against the other various top fours of the Pacific Division this year? Let’s take a look at the Anaheim Ducks who have Jackson Mcome and Radco, then Olan Zelwiger and Jacob Trouba. The Anaheim Ducks are going to be very good in the near future, but they’re not quite there yet. Lome just had a career-defining sophomore campaign where he notched 43 points, became Anaheim’s top defender, and maybe put himself on the radar for the 2026 US Olympic team. That being said, Lome is just a year and three months younger than Hughes and has a long way to go before they’re said to be anything close to comparable. Beyond Lome, the Ducks have a couple aging but still ultra physical veterans in Gudas and Trouba. Then they’ve got a ton of other young upandcomers including Zelwiger Pebble Mint Tukov, probably mispronounced that, apologies, Drew Helison, and Tristan Lenel. Chances seem good that the Anaheim Blue is eventually going to be a real strength of theirs, but they’ll have to experience some growing pains before they get there. For 2025 26, the Canucks still have a stronger top four than the Ducks. Let’s take a look at the Calgary Flames. They have Kevin Ball, Mackenzie Wager, Joel Hanley, and Rasmus Anderson. It may be the case that Waguer is the second best overall defender in the Pacific. After Hughes, he’s got a real shot at the 2026 Canadian Olympic team and remains one of the most versatile blue liners in the game. Past him, the Flames may be flitting with a rebuild, but they’ve still got a capable defense. Anderson is a pending UFA, but for the time being, he’s got to be the best second best right-handed defenseman in the division. Ball has found his feet in Calgary and was just signed to a lengthy extension. It’s past this top three that the Flames run into trouble. None of the rest of their depth contains much in the way of differencem with names like Hanley, Jake Bean, Denil, Mir Manov, and Braden Pahal rounding out the set. What the Flames do have are a number of great blue line prospects led by a 19-year-old right-handed defenseman Zayn Perk who could become a full-time NHL full-time NHL as soon as this year. Unlike with Anaheim, however, it’s tough to tell if the youth contingent will arrive in Calgary soon enough to beat the inevitable decline of their older players. With all due respect to Weager, the Canucks still clearly have a better top four than the Flames for 202526. Let’s take a look at the Edmonton Oilers. Matias Ecom, Evan Bushard, Darnell Nurse, and Jake Walman. It can be really tough to know what to make of the Edmonton Blue Line. On the one hand, it’s been good enough to make it to the Stanley Cup finals two years in a row. On the other hand, it’s been a clear weak link at times that the Oilers seem to have succeeded in spite of. What we do know is that the Oilers will be paying nearly as much cap hit for their top two blue line earners, Buchard and Nurse, at 19.75 million as the Canucks will be paying for their entire top four with a combined 23.6 million. And yet, they’ll be pulling less overall value out of their top four as the Canucks do from Hughes alone. The Oilers’s top four, even with players pay playing out of position, remains better on ice than it looks on paper, but it’s still a it’s still a clear step or two behind the quality of Vancouvers. For 2025 26, the Canucks have a more capable top four than than the Oilers. Let’s take a look at the Los Angeles King at the LA Kings. Mikey Anderson, Drew Dowy, Brian Dumlan, and Cody Cece. The Kings were supposed to be really good by now. For a while there, they had the top ranked prospect covered in the entire league, and that collection of prospects included a number of high-profile young defenders. Halfway through the decade, however, the Young Kings have failed to make as much noise as expected, and LA continues to rely too heavily on aging veterans. The 35-year-old Dowy still carries too much of a load, as evidenced by the Kings choosing to go out and hand some overpriced contracts to veterans Dumlain and Cece. this off season. Whenever Brand Clark breaks into the top four, that’ll be a good thing for LA. But for now, they’re a group that’s mostly on the wrong side of 30. And besides Dowy, each appears to be one rung higher on the depth chart than they rightly should be. For 2025 26, the Kucks top four stays ahead of the Kings. Let’s take a look at the San Jose Sharks. Mario Ferrero, Timothy Liilren, Dimmitri Orlov, and John Clingberg. We can keep this one pretty short. The San Jose Sharks are still in the midst of a full-scale rebuild by all accounts. It’s going to it’s going quite well, but the Sharks missed out on a chance to select Matthew Schaefer with the first overall pick this year, and that means their blue line is very much a work in long-term progress. Sharks added some short-term veterans in Orlo, Clingberg, and Nick Ley this off season, presumably just to give their young superstar fors a little bit more consistent support from the back end. But each of them is is just a placeholder and only Orla really has much business still being in a NHL top four. As young D like Sam Dickinson begin to appear, the Sharks as blue will get better for 202526. However, the Conucks top four is several steps ahead of the Sharks. Take a look at the Seattle Kraken. Vince Dunn, Brandon Montour, Jimmy Alexiaak, and Adam Larson. The rivalry between Vancouver and Seattle hasn’t quite got off the ground yet. That’s in part due the due to the Kraken’s own inability to launch. They’re still finding an identity in year five of their existence and are projected to once again float around the mushy middle in 202526. Their blue line, however, does look pretty good on paper. Honestly, one of the better ones we’ve looked at today. Dunn is a perennial Norris vote receiver. Larson and Alexiaak are two towering defenders that fall into the camp of difficult to play against, but the Kraken sign monour to big money after a career season that very much look like a one and done. At the same time, they’ve yet to yet to develop much in the way of young NHL ready blue line prospects that’s left a strange situation in which a brand new team has an aging Blue Line and no youth movement ready to take over. Now for 2025. Now for 2025 26 and into the foreseeable future. The Canucks have the best top four in the Pacific Northwest. Let’s take a look at the Vegas Golden Knights. Noah Hannifan, Shay Theodore, Braden McNab, and Zack Whiteclaw. We arranged this list alphabetically, but we had arranged it for a fact, we probably would have concluded with Vegas anyway. There’s really only one other Pacific team whose top four can compete with the Canucks, and it’s that of the Golden Knights. Now, the Vegas blue line took a massive hit this off seasonason with Alex Petrangelo’s pseudo retirement. They’ve lost not only their top defender overall, but also one of the best right-handed defenseman in the league. Behind Petrangelo, they’ve got just Theodore playing his offside, Whitecloud, and the young Kaden Corsac. That would mean a step back for the Knights this year, especially given that Nicholas Heg was shipped off too. But where does that leave them as a visa vancouver? If we go ahead, if we go headto-head on it, it probably looks something like this. Hughes over Theodore, uh, Hannneathan over Heronic, Marcus Person over McNab, Whitecloud over Meyers, which looks incredibly even. We’re tempted to give the nod to the Canucks on the strength of Hughes alone well and above the rest of the pack. But then the Vegas unit as a whole has certainly accomplished more than the Vanc than the Canucks have. Both top fours have their share of health concerns in the end which performs better in 2025 26 may just come down to which suffers fewer injuries. There’s a perspective here where the connects have the better top four and thus the best top four four pairing in the Pacific division for 202526. But if anyone prefers the Vegas top four, it’s tough to tell them they’re wrong. For now, it might be fair to say that Vancouver and Vegas are tied for the best top fours in the Pacific for the time being and that the real answer will be determined on the ice. So, let me know in the comment section down below if you guys agree with this. Um, do you guys agree that Vancouver has the best top four pairing in the Pacific Division? Do you guys think that maybe Vegas does or maybe another team that we listed may have? Let me know in the comment section down below. And as always, if you guys like this video, beer, be sure to hit that like button. If you want to stay up to date on all your Bank of Connects content, be sure to smash that subscribe button and turn on your notifications so you don’t miss a single video. You can find and interact with us on social media. Find us on Facebook. Just search the lineange to find our Facebook page. Find us on Instagram at the lineange. You can find us on X at lineange van. Can find us on Tik Tok at the TLC podcast. Can also find us on blue sky at the lineange. And feel free to give us a follow on all of our social media platforms. If you prefer a audio version of this podcast, you can find us on both Spotify and Apple Podcast. on Spotify. Feel feel free to give us a follow as well as rate and review us. It is of course greatly appreciated. That’s going to do it for this video. As always, let’s go Canox and I’ll see you guys in the next video. [Music] Heat. [Music] [Music]
In this video we discuss the #Canucks top 4 defence pairings and how they could very well have the best top 4 defence in the Pacific Division this upcoming season. We go through all the teams from the division and see how they compare to the Canucks.
LINK TO ARTICLE: https://canucksarmy.com/news/do-vancouver-canucks-have-best-top-four-defence-pacific-division-2025-26
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