Quinn Hughes is a magician on the offensive blue line. 🎥: Sportsnet | #Canucks
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3 Canucks Stars of the Week: Quinn Hughes’ last dance
Photo credit: © Simon Fearn-Imagn Images
Dec 15, 2025, 16:30 ESTUpdated: Dec 15, 2025, 15:47 EST
Welcome back to Stars of the Week at CanucksArmy! Every week, we’ll be bringing you our Top Three best and brightest performers on the Vancouver Canucks that week. Disagree with our picks or have your own stars to nominate? Let us know in the comments below!
What a great week for hockey. Surely nothing extreme or earth-shattering occurred on a Friday evening before the holidays!
All jokes aside, the elephant in the room has been addressed. The elephant in the room proceeded to leave the room, the house, actually, the entire city.
There are no words I can use to articulate what Quinn Hughes meant to the city of Vancouver and to the Canucks that have not already been used. He’s one of the great players to have worn a Canucks sweater, and certainly one of the greatest Vancouver has ever lost. Many have done their grieving of the Hughes era over the weekend; for some, it’s barely scratched the surface.
So…where do you go from here?
What do the Canucks look like when one player isn’t running the power play as a Hail Mary? What do they look like when the player in question isn’t playing thirty minutes a night to no avail? What do they look like after trading their second captain in as many years without much success to show for any of it? What do they look like with a group of players who ideally want to, and will, stick it out?
I am heartbroken. You do not replace a player like Hughes. That said, I look forward to focusing on the players working hard for the team when it comes to selecting stars of the week, even through what is now, officially, a rebuild. The youth are the answer. Elias Pettersson, the defenceman, had a solid bounce-back week; Zeev Buium saw a goal and an assist in his first week. Nils Höglander made his return to the lineup. He may be a mainstay on the roster by now, but he is still set to turn just 25 years old this week.
I look forward to starting fresh. The only way out is through.
The Canucks have only played one game without their former captain. With an undeniable star out of the picture, who will rise to the occasion as the Canucks effectively begin again?
Quinn Hughes
When you see your chance to make Quinn Hughes a star of the week for the last time, you take it.
Finishing off his career as a Canuck in a loss to the Buffalo Sabres, without Elias Pettersson in the lineup, was far from ideal. I wish his final days as a Canuck had gone out with a bang, rather than a whimper. But this business, this league, is not built on wishes – it’s built on decisions, and consequences, and just a little bit of luck, or lack thereof.
Hughes was skating as usual in this final game, with speed and skill you can probably see from space, and could be spotted at the point on the power play, taking desperation shots at the net. His hustle despite impending horrors paid off, seeing as his last point came in the form of an assist on Kiefer Sherwood’s power play goal.
🚨CANUCKS GOAL🚨 Kiefer Sherwood scores his first goal in 11 games! 🎥: Sportsnet | #Canucks
I’ll miss his spins, I’ll miss the puck protection, the edge work. This was himself, under pressure.
Jake DeBrusk
Jake DeBrusk had two points (1G 1PPG) on the week, but considering it was one of the franchise’s darkest weeks in decades, it was just nice to see him break out of his slump.
🚨CANUCKS GOAL🚨 Zeev Buium picks up his first point as Jake DeBrusk opens the scoring on the powerplay in New Jersey. 🎥: Sportsnet | #Canucks
DeBrusk’s reputation for his positive attitude is nothing new, and it’s the precise kind of thing that makes his role in the locker room important beyond his appearances on the scoresheet and gains fan loyalty.
DeBrusk had a very measured response to the initial shock and later numbness of the Hughes trade. It also briefly took us down memory lane to the aftermath of the last Canucks captain trade…but let’s hope any comments are more civil, this time around.
Debrusk with the Horvat reference lmaooo
Buium goes the dynamite (sorry) as Canucks’ new rookie opens the post-Hughes era. Brock Boeser: “You don't even know what these guys have yet because they’re so young. But today was a step in a new direction. And I'm looking forward to it.” sportsnet.ca/nhl/article/we…
Thatcher Demko
Just like DeBrusk, there are a few notes on Thatcher Demko this week – both on and off the ice.
Firstly, Demko returned to the crease for the first time since November 11th. He might not look entirely healthy or like his old self – he might not be ever again, but that is a whole other depressing in-depth conversation to have – but he was looking much better than he did before his most recent absence. After the disaster that was Kevin Lankinen getting pulled in favour of Nikita Tolopilo just to get shut out by the Red Wings anyway, it was clear that Demko was needed back. Whether he is fully ready to be back, however, is still in question. Up against former Canuck Jacob Markstrom and the New Jersey Devils, Demko posted a .962 SV% after saving 25 out of 26 shots, compared to Markstrom’s .867 SV% and 13 saves on 15 Canucks shots.
In the melancholic vacuum left from the black hole collapse that was Quinn Hughes’ departure from Vancouver, it was reassuring to hear that, in no uncertain terms, the longest-tenured Canuck is committed to remaining with the team.
"I knew I wanted to be a Canuck," #Canucks goalie Thatcher Demko told @TheAthletic when asked if he'd priced the uncertainty around Hughes into his decision to extend. "There's no ifs or buts about that. Like I wanted to be a Canuck, so whatever that looked like, I'm in for it."
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