There’s a world — a dark, scary world — where the Vancouver Canucks did not pick Quinn Hughes at the 2018 NHL Entry Draft.
The Canucks had the seventh overall pick in 2018, so all it would have taken is one of the six teams ahead of them to recognize that Hughes was the best player available in the draft.
Seven years later, Hughes leads all players from the 2018 draft in points, has won a Norris Trophy, is the favourite to win another this season, and ought to be in consideration for the Hart Trophy too.
Adam Boqvist, taken with the pick after Quinn Hughes, is on waivers
At the time, Hughes was considered to be in the second tier of defencemen in the draft behind consensus first-overall pick Rasmus Dahlin, along with Noah Dobson, Evan Bouchard, and Adam Boqvist.
The Canucks were ecstatic when the Arizona Coyotes overrated Barrett Hayton and the Detroit Red Wings picked the sliding Filip Zadina, allowing Hughes to fall right into their laps. But with the Canucks desperately in need of a defenceman, the Canucks might have gone with the player picked right after Hughes by the Chicago Blackhawks: Adam Boqvist.
Boqvist was , with offensive upside that could be credibly compared to Erik Karlsson but major questions about his defensive game. At this point in his career, he’s looking an awful lot like a bust.
The Chicago Blackhawks traded Boqvist to the Columbus Blue Jackets back in 2021. Then the Blue Jackets bought out the final year of Boqvist’s $2.6 million contract this past offseason and the Florida Panthers took a chance on the 24-year-old defenceman, signing him to a one-year, $775,000 deal.
Now the Panthers, like the Blackhawks and Blue Jackets, have evidently given up on Boqvist and have placed him on waivers.
The world where the Canucks came out of the 2018 draft with Boqvist instead of Hughes is the darkest timeline.
But with the right-shot defenceman on waivers, the Canucks could potentially exist in both worlds by having both Hughes and Boqvist on their roster. Should the Canucks take a chance on Boqvist and claim him off waivers?
Boqvist has real offensive upside
The Canucks have a significant need on defence and are particularly in need of defencemen who can move the puck and have offensive upside. Other than Quinn Hughes (and sometimes Filip Hronek and Tyler Myers when they’re with Quinn Hughes), that’s something the Canucks’ defence corps is sorely lacking.
So, let’s start with the biggest positive in Boqvist’s game: he has some legitimately dynamic offensive upside.
Boqvist is adept at skating the puck up ice in transition, particularly when it comes to joining the rush and gaining the offensive blue line. Once in the offensive zone, Boqvist can create scoring chances for both himself and his teammates with his mobility and passing.
The defenceman is most dangerous when he can get the puck on his stick in a shooting position, as his wristshot can be lethal. He had a career-high 11 goals in 52 games in the 2021-22 season with the Columbus Blue Jackets.
Boqvist’s offensive impact can be seen in this heat map from , illustrating his 18 games with the Florida Panthers this season. When Boqvist was on the ice for the Panthers at 5-on-5, their shot attempts were 17% more dangerous than the league average.
By way of comparison, Quinn Hughes’ heat map indicates the Canucks’ shot attempts when he’s on the ice are only 10% more dangerous than the league average.
Before anyone takes too much issue with those numbers, that’s primarily because the Canucks as a whole take less dangerous shots. The Panthers without Boqvist create shot attempts 7% more dangerous than the league average. When Hughes isn’t on the ice for the Canucks, their shot attempts are 23% less dangerous than the league average, which is obscenely bad.
In any case, there’s clearly some offensive upside with Boqvist, who has 25 goals and 91 points in 227 career games. That’s a career average of 0.40 points per game, which would be third best on the Canucks’ blue line behind Hughes and Hronek.
That’s the good for Boqvist.
Boqvist is a disaster defensively
There’s a flipside to all of this positivity, however, and it comes in the defensive zone.
There are two reasons why Boqvist has been considered a bust. One is that his career has been plagued by injuries that have prevented him from playing even a single full season in the NHL. His 52 games in the 2021-22 season were a career high. Last season, he played just 35 games while dealing with a shoulder injury.
This season, however, he’s generally been healthy. He’s only played 18 games for the Panthers because he’s been a healthy scratch for the other reason he’s been considered a bust: his defensive game.
The concerns raised about Boqvist’s defensive game during his draft year have borne themselves out in the NHL. Boqvist gives up a ton defensively, which cancels out all of his offensive upside.
Here’s the heat map of the defensive zone for the Panthers with Boqvist on the ice this season, with a terrifyingly dark red area directly in front of the net.
, well, there’s your problem.
With Boqvist on the ice at 5-on-5, the Panthers’ opponents took shot attempts that were 15% more dangerous than league average. Without Boqvist, their opponents’ shot attempts were 14% less dangerous than league average.
Boqvist is the only Panthers defenceman who has been on the ice for more goals against at 5-on-5 than goals for. He’s been on the ice for the highest rate of shot attempts against, shots on goal against, scoring chances against, high-danger scoring chances against, expected goals against, and goals against among Panthers’ defencemen. He’s worst on the team by a wide margin in most of those.
That’s in spite of having the highest offensive-zone start percentage on the Panthers and being heavily, heavily sheltered from tough competition.
The issues for Boqvist defensively are many. A big one is that in spite of his mobility and passing, he’s not particularly good at puck retrievals and zone exits, which is a major part of transitioning the puck up ice. That forces him to defend in his own zone more than he rightly should and more flaws reveal themselves, as he struggles to win board battles and box out in front of the net.
That’s the bad for Boqvist.
Boqvist would arguably still be an upgrade for the Canucks
So, why even bother writing this? If Boqvist can’t defend effectively, then Canucks head coach Rick Tocchet and assistant coach Adam Foote won’t have any time for him. After all, we’ve seen how that coaching duo handled Erik Brännström.
The comparison to Brännström doesn’t really work, however. Boqvist is significantly better offensively and significantly worse defensively than Brännström. He’s like if you took Brännström and turned all of the dials to their most extreme degrees.
That said, Boqvist is only 24 and is 6’0”, so he’s got a couple of inches on Brännström, even if he’s not a tree like the defencemen for which the Canucks have shown a preference. You have to wonder if there could be a certain “” component to Boqvist, similar to what the Canucks tried with Daniel Sprong. Maybe, just maybe, Tocchet and Foote could get Boqvist to be at least adequate defensively and unlock a legitimate NHL defenceman.
You might doubt whether the Canucks would be so hubristic, but they also thought they could fix Vincent Desharnais.
Speaking of, that’s the other element of this question: Boqvist doesn’t have to be good. He just has to be better than Noah Juulsen and Vincent Desharnais.
Here’s the thing: Desharnais has played himself right out of the lineup, while Juulsen has arguably been just as bad defensively this season as Boqvist while providing none of the offensive upside.
With Juulsen on the ice at 5-on-5, the Canucks give up a ton of chances in the slot, thanks to a combination of Juulsen’s inability to move the puck up ice and tendency to chase hits along the boards.
The Canucks could claim Boqvist with the simple reasoning that he can’t be that much worse than Juulsen defensively and brings a lot more offensive upside. Combined with a league-minimum $775,000 cap hit and there's your argument.
But at this point, this is less about Boqvist than it is about the Canucks’ desperate need on defence.
The Panthers have decided that they would rather have two left-shot defenceman playing on their off-side than have Boqvist in their lineup. If Boqvist in any way represents an upgrade for the Canucks’ defence corps, that’s an indictment on the Canucks.
But hey, it’s worth a shot, right?
