We’re not going to win any local journalism awards for another article on just how amazing Quinn Hughes is as a hockey player. That cat is firmly out of the bag.

If the Norris Trophy didn’t confirm it, the “third-fastest blueliner to 300 assists behind Bobby Orr and Brian Leetch” probably did.

Nor is it particularly interesting to note that Hughes has become the Canucks’ undisputed MVP. With no shade intended to any of the Canucks’ other stars, the fact that Hughes belongs in an echelon all his own has been apparent for a while now.

But what is perhaps at least a little more interesting to point out at this juncture is how much better Hughes has been in 2024/25 thus far, even in comparison to his Norris-winning performance in 2023/24. And not just better, but more important to the Canucks’ and their on-ice success.

Or, in keeping with the parlance of team and league awards: more valuable.

Technically speaking, Hughes is a little bit behind his scoring pace of last year, with 12 points in 11 games translating to a 1.09 point-per-game average, as opposed to 2023/24’s 92 in 82, or 1.12 PPG.

And his average ice-time of 25:00 even is only 19 seconds ahead of 2023/24’s average of 24:41.
To find evidence of Hughes’ increased on-ice importance, we need to dig a little deeper below the surface-level stats. We need to get into the WOWY of it all, a U2-inspired hockey acronym that stands for “with or without you.”

In other words, we need to look at how the Canucks perform with Hughes on the ice, and without him on the ice.

No doubt about it, Hughes was important to the Canucks’ fortunes in 2023/24, and that’s reflected in his WOWY results. We compiled some numbers from NaturalStatTrick together, and this is what we came up with:

As anyone could plainly see from this chart, Hughes was already starting off from a very strong base of on-ice difference-making. The Canucks’ 5-on-5 numbers with Hughes on the ice were significantly better than they were without him in a quite literal across-the-board fashion.

Most prominently, the Canucks’ ratio of goals for and against rose by almost 10% with Hughes on the ice. But sizeable jumps also occurred in shots, shots directed at the net, expected goals, and scoring chances.

Whenever Hughes was on the ice, significantly better things were happening for the Canucks.

Which, again, is not a revelation. He won the Norris and Team MVP honours for a reason.

What we’re here to demonstrate today is just how much more of a difference-maker Hughes has become in 2024/25. The clear step forward is apparent and unignorable in his advanced statistical line.

Here, the “WOWY” is both the name of the numbers and what you might reasonably say when you see them:

Really, they’re staggering results. The Canucks score goals at a 30+% greater clip with Hughes out there. They control 20% more of the shots and shot attempts. They’ve got control of nearly 25% more of the scoring chances.

Those aren’t statistical gaps. They’re statistical gulfs! Darn-near statistical abysses.

Now, there’s an argument to be made that some of this discrepancy is down to a general lessening of the quality of blueliners around Hughes between 2023/24 and this current stretch of 2024/25. And that is definitely a factor here. The ‘without Hughes’ numbers are a fair bit lower now than they were last season.

But the ‘with Hughes’ stats are also higher, and to a greater degree. In other words, for whatever downgrade the Canucks’ blueline has experienced, Hughes’ own personal upgrade far outstrips it. He’s just on another level now.

Now, we aren’t really expecting anyone to break out an argument of deployment here. But just in case they want to, let’s clear that up quickly, because Hughes is definitely not playing any easier minutes in 2024/25.

Hughes essentially played against a quality of competition that matched with the league average in 2023/24. Thus far in 2024/25, he’s a little bit ahead of that, into the slightly-above-league-average range.

He is starting about 4% more of his shifts in the offensive zone as compared to last year, so if you really want to find a circumstantial reason for the rise of Hughes, that’s your best bet.

But, really, it’s getting hard to argue that the primary reason for the rise of Hughes isn’t just Hughes himself. These stats don’t necessarily prove that Hughes has taken another step forward as a player, but they do serve to confirm and reinforce what fans and media have already seen on the ice.

It’s also probably important to note that the 2023/24 stats we’re displaying are, obviously, the course of an entire season, with all its ups and downs. The 2024/25 stats, meanwhile, are just for the first 11 games of the season. But most would categorize this start as a bit of a slow one for the Canucks, which should correlate with a ‘down’ period, statistically. What that means is that we can hope for the ‘without Hughes’ stats to improve over time, closing up that gap a bit, but there’s perhaps less reason to worry that the ‘with Hughes’ stats will deteriorate. Maybe the opposite, in fact.

As far as the early goings go, Hughes would appear to have moved from MVP to EMMVP – Even More Most Valuable Player. One wonders if one player has ever been this singularly important to the Vancouver Canucks before in their franchise history. And one also wonders just how good the Canucks can be as a whole if the rest of the roster follows their captain’s example.